Around New England

Third Massachusetts School Principal Comes Out As Transgender

June 4, 2019

The former Colleen O’Connor now wants to be known as Declan O’Connor, but will continue as principal of a charter middle school in Springfield.

The biological female has announced now identifying publicly as a man.

O’Connor, 49, while identifying as a woman civilly married another woman about a decade ago, according to MassLive.com.

Yet O’Connor does not identify publicly as a biologically female lesbian.

“After much soul searching, I realized that I have an obligation to my communities, and myself, to be my fully authentic self in every area of my life,” O’Connor wrote in a letter to parents announcing O’Connor’s gender identity earlier this week, according to MassLive.com.

O’Connor is the principal of Chestnut Middle School Talented and Gifted, a grades-6-through-8 school in Springfield, a city of about 155,000 in western Massachusetts.

In June 2017 a principal in Brookline who is a biological female announced identifying as a man.

In February 2018 a principal of an elementary school in Swampscott who is a biological male announced identifying as a woman.