For years, the 42-year-old taught her students to treat difference as a new experience. Her difference was yet to be lived.

Born Nathan and raised in DeKalb County, she said boys were supposed to play sports, get married, have kids and live happily ever after. She tried that until she couldn’t.

In 2015, she began living life as Natalie everywhere but at Dunwoody High School, where she teaches. That would change this year. She prepared her students on the last day of school in May. Mr. Williams would not be returning, she told them.

“But Ms. Williams would.”

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(Illustration: Jessi Esparza / AJC)

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Atlanta art and antiques appraiser and auctioneer Allan Baitcher (right) takes bids during a 2020 auction. Baitcher and his company, Peachtree Antiques, are being sued by a Florida multimillionaire who says he paid them $20 million for fakes. (AJC 2020)

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