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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Views of the exterior of Druid Hills High School in Atlanta shown on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. In the plan approved by the DeKalb County school board on Monday, everything but the main building, pictured here, will be demolished in favor of a new school building. (Natrice Miller/ AJC)

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Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com