Editing Speech for Gender and Sexuality

I actually have had first-hand experience editing my speech with gender and sexuality. A fraternity brother requested to be referred to as "Nathan*" and "male" within the fraternity because he was considering a sexchange. For the past four years, I have referred to my friend as Nathan and never questioned the choice.
His facebook was set as Nathan, later changed to W.N., but is now set as Wendy*. (There is no gender specified on his facebook, but I don't have one specified on mine either.) We took a motorcycle course together the summer after we graduate from VT and she made sure that while we were in class to refer to her as "Wendy."
During our senior year, she actually decided that she wanted to remain female and keep her name as Wendy, but did not bring this request to the fraternity because she did not want to raise any further confusion (I only found out about this last week).
Over spring break, I went to Hampton to visit Sarah* and Nathan with Rachelle*. (Sarah, Rachelle, and I were roommates and Nathan is now roommates with Sarah, but we're all really good friends). Before Rachelle and I left my mom's house in Richmond we raised the question to each other, "How do we refer to Nathan? Is he still Nathan, or is she Wendy?" I voted we just not make a direct name mention until we figure out one way or the other. Luckily, Sarah immediately began reffering to Nathan as Wendy and our question was answered. I brought up our questin to Sarah in private and she informed us about Wendy's choice to remain female and how she decided this while we were still in college and it made entering the professional world much easier.

Editing myself to write the above blog entry was difficult. To edit, I referred to Nathan as him when he was Nathan to me. But once I found out she decided to remain female and Wendy I respected it by referring to her as she. This scenario is similar to Donald vs Deirdra McClosky that we talked about during class. My theory is to define the person in the context in which you knew the gender. When Nathan was known as Nathan, I refer to him as him. This past week, when I was made aware Nathan chose to be Wendy, I refer to her as her.

*Names have been changed for privacy purposes