Isabel Goyer is making an NBAA-BACE “debut” of sorts this year, but she is hardly a stranger to the show, nor to NBAA and business aviation. The editor-in-chief of Plane & Pilot magazine (previously EIC at Flying Magazine), who took home NBAA’s 2012 David W. Ewald Platinum Wing Award for lifetime achievement in journalism, came out as transgender in August. “There have been few changes in my personal life, and I’m grateful to my family and friends for their longtime support for my true identity,” she said. “What was really gratifying was seeing the nearly universal acceptance of my gender identity in the aviation industry, something I don’t think we would have seen even five years ago.”

What has not changed, Goyer told AIN, is her passion for flying, aviation journalism, and air-to-air photography. “I’m still the same person with the same knowledge experience and skills,” she said. “The difference,” she added, “is that I can be my true self everywhere and every day.

“The support I have received from my employer, countless friends, and colleagues in the industry has been overwhelming. It’s immensely gratifying,” she said, “to see how my many friends in aviation were true friends when I needed them most.”