Coming out at work

[Madison Leigh]

I had initially figured that it would be later in the year before the therapist signed off on HRT so I had intended on doing that as well as starting laser work on my face (which I do this week) and then at some point early next year proceed to broach the issue at work and look to start living full time as Madison. 

However, as we were concluding my last therapist visit, she committed to starting on my letter at my upcoming session this week and having it finished when I saw her for the following session.  This was a pleasant surprise, but it's caused me to reconsider my plans for work and going full time.  However, I'm in a bit of a quandary of how best to broach things with work.

I work for a (very) small software company that is actually based on the east coast.  I myself live in the midwest and as such work from home.  The bulk of my job is documentation, phone support, and development.  On average maybe 1-2 times a year I have to travel to one of our "dealers" to perform on-site training (although this is becoming less common as it's just as easy to train remotely), or to help with with a larger installation, or perhaps attend a trade show; but in general my work life is a lot like Sandra Bullock's character in "The Net" - except I do spent more time on the phone and less time on Instant Messaging.   Because of that, I'd like to think that it would be less of an issue than it might if I were in a position where I was dealing with people face to face on a daily basis; however, I suppose that may be an overly optimistic viewpoint.

The quandary I have is how to address this with my boss.  Considering our physical locations I see my options as via phone or via email.  I'm strongly leaning towards email as it gives me the opportunity to gather and express all of my thoughts the best and allows him to "digest" things before the inevitable follow-up phone call(s).  Additionally, as he's on vacation this week I thought if I were going to go the email route that I'd send it Friday evening.  That would give him the weekend to read/digest what I'm sure will be a shock to his system and we could then talk that Monday.

I guess what I'm looking for is if anybody has any thoughts on phone vs email - either from personal experience or just in general.  Anything that anybody has to say would be appreciated.

Madison

[cindianna_jones]

Wow, this is an interesting situation. It sounds as though you have very little real personal interaction with your profession (face to face interaction).

I'm wondering how necessary disclosure really is here. I'm just rambling here. I don't have a strong opinion in any direction. But it seems that the most important part of your personhood would be your voice. Am I correct? What rammifications are involved with this? Is it possible that your employer will not want you to interface with customers? I ask this because I had this problem, even though my voice was NOT an issue. The issue is that they didn't want a transgender woman representing their products.

This isn't a situation where we consider the whole you. People won't have that opportunity. Have you talked this over with your therapist? Please give this some thought. I don't know you. I don't know what you are feeling. But, you might consider putting this off as long as it doesn't impact your real life test.

But don't take my advice. I'm only throwing out some ideas for you to think about. In any case, I'm happy for you. You are on the verge of a very interesting journey. I hope you are keeping a journal!

[Madison Leigh]

Wow, this is an interesting situation. It sounds as though you have very little real personal interaction with your profession (face to face interaction).

That is correct.  Without going into too much boring details of what I do or how my company works, we have between a half-dozen and a dozen "resellers" of our software.  One of them happens to be where I'm located and in fact I worked for them for 9 years prior to "moving up the food chain" so to speak to take my current position with this company.  This "calendar" year for example the only "face to face" I've had is when I went out to a customer's site for a couple of hours with the local reseller to try and resolve some issues with an upgrade (it was a customer I originally installed and supported years ago so the thought was I might be able to help smooth things over).  Had if it had been an out of town reseller it might've been a day or two including travel; but that's about the extent of my "non-phone" interactions - I probably average 1-2 of these a year.

I'm wondering how necessary disclosure really is here. I'm just rambling here. I don't have a strong opinion in any direction. But it seems that the most important part of your personhood would be your voice. Am I correct? What rammifications are involved with this? Is it possible that your employer will not want you to interface with customers? I ask this because I had this problem, even though my voice was NOT an issue. The issue is that they didn't want a transgender woman representing their products.

I do think I'm going to see the same issue that you mention.  Most of our resellers have owners that are a generation older than me (I'm in my early 40's for reference) and aren't necessarily the most progressive people, so I think the "image" would be a concern.  The disclosure thought is something that briefly crossed my mind; but I was thinking about it only as far as my own company goes and I more or less ruled out not disclosing things as while I could give them some excuse about a name change for example - I would've had to have went with something more gender neutral (which I did consider) for example, and then assuming I was able to fully transition it would eventually come out that I lied - at least by omission and I didn't want to do that. 


However, after you mentioned it I thought a little more about it and frankly there wouldn't necessarily be a reason to disclose it to our resellers - which might alleviate what I think will be the my company's largest concern.

This isn't a situation where we consider the whole you. People won't have that opportunity. Have you talked this over with your therapist? Please give this some thought. I don't know you. I don't know what you are feeling. But, you might consider putting this off as long as it doesn't impact your real life test.

I haven't discussed it with my therapist yet.  She surprised me at the end of our session the other day - we got off on the topic of "plans" and I started discussing that I was going to start treatments for my facial hair and working on my voice and she broached writing my HRT letter and getting start on that.  I expected that to take at least another month or two.  It wasn't until a day or two later that I really started giving thought to handling work.  Suffice it to say that this will be a topic for discussion this week.


You may be right about putting it off some - my initial thought was to put it off until probably early next year; as I said above, it wasn't until the other day that it become a thought to do it now.  Now it wasn't just the potential of going on HRT that made me ponder doing it now - it was also a timing issue on a couple of fronts.  The first being the "interaction" concern.  The two trade shows I sometimes end up attending have already been held this year, and as we start getting closer to the holidays, our resellers tend to not be as busy (we develop retail point of sale software and very few people want to install/upgrade as the holidays approach) so the potential of me having to go out of town is significantly lower later in the year.  The second is that we are working on our next version and we've committed to our first "beta" to be out this month.  Obviously I could be replaced (as could just about anybody), but right now it would be far more difficult to do so because of that.  I love my job and would not want to leave it - either voluntarily or not - but if things didn't "go well", I think I'd have more time to look for something else while still being gainfully employed.


As far as it impacting my Real Life Test - I guess that's six of one half dozen of another as other than the official name change; the work part of it - well how much does it matter considering my job?  I guess that's another question for the therapist.  I'll have her busy this week.

But don't take my advice. I'm only throwing out some ideas for you to think about. In any case, I'm happy for you. You are on the verge of a very interesting journey. I hope you are keeping a journal!

I appreciate your comments/thoughts - as well as anybody else who chooses to share here.  This is something I've thought about and wanted for a long time; but never really considered it feasible for a multitude of reasons so until recently I hadn't put a lot of thought into things like this.  Your ideas are greatly appreciated and have definitely given me some things to think about that I hadn't really considered.


As far as the journal goes, I wasn't initially, but I did start one the other day finally.


Thanks again.


Madison

[cindianna_jones]

You can certainly get a lot done before you do your RLT. You should always plan on having enough for your GRS before you make any changes. It's also nice to have a little extra stashed away, just in case you'd like to find other employment. I know you have a good gig, but you just never know how people deal with this. Sometimes, it's us, who need the change of venue. For me, it was essential that I get out of an environment where I was that TS into one where I was "her."  It's good that you are taking a logical approach to this. To pull it off smoothly, you need to think it through and plan for contingencies.

[Madison Leigh]

I did visit my therapist again today and while the bulk of the session revolved around her asking some specific things (she's started on my HRT letter and wanted to "fill in some blanks" as she put it), we did broach me talking to my boss.

She did also put me in touch with someone who not only was very successful transitioning herself, but also helped develop HR policies and such with regards to this.  Obviously each person's experience is different and she works for a *much* larger company than I do, but any insights are always helpful and I'm looking forward to speaking with her.

Madison