Should people 'warn' people or not?

[Cindy]

I've had a few interesting experiences since going FT. As I have said before I'm a very high profile person in my profession and going FT at work and professionally was not a trivial undertaking. People have been great.

It is obvious that many of my professional colleagues have informed each other of my new status/presentation, which is fine. It is also obvious that in the larger Dept of Health that I work in that information has been passed around. BTW where I am in Adelaide South Australia it is totally illegal to discriminate against me and I presume there would have been information passed around to that effect.

I'm now seeing a funny side effect. I meet with many people who want to do research projects etc and we talk and if they have never met me before they can look a little 'startled' before we settle down. Probably because they have been told to meet this guy who does this job and runs this service and they haven't caught up with the info that this guy is now this girl.

What usually happens is after the first meetings the researcher will bring along the person who will do the work. A post-doc or an RA etc for an in depth strategy meeting.  What is pretty obvious is that the lead person hasn't let on about me. OK I don't pass and I don't care. I'm me and I'm very very capable of what I do and how I react.

But you can see the shock in a persons eyes before they settle down and get over it. It doesn't in any way upset me, in fact it amuses me. But I raise the question, 'Should people tell others that I'm TG or a new woman or whatever?' I don't feel that it is quite the same as being outed, in fact I'm very OK with it; what do you think?


I'll empathise I'm in no way upset. In fact I'm falling the way of telling people.

Cindy

[Joann]

But I raise the question, 'Should people tell others that I'm TG or a new woman or whatever?' I don't feel that it is quite the same as being outed, in fact I'm very OK with it; what do you think?


I'll empathise I'm in no way upset. In fact I'm falling the way of telling people.

Cindy

Well it seems your quite FT now so would trans still apply?
I dont like "New woman" sounds like a magazine advert.
Maybe "Just call me Cindy"?

[justmeinoz]

Interesting question Cindy.  I guess it would depend on the workplace. 

[Beverly]

It depends....

If the meeting is fairly unimportant or the contact is not too senior then I would just leave it. Word will get around. For more important / vital meetings I would maybe drop an email along the lines of 'Just to update you, in case you were unaware...'

I suspect that the whole thing will sort itself out before too long. Word gets about and it is not illegal to gossip (yet!)

[spacial]

In your position, (Wish), I'd like to think I would expect others to accept me how they find me.

My appearance is irrelevant.

My behaviour, how much respect I show to them, how much I will contribute to my society and what sort of respect I expect back.

In my experience, these sort of researchers are much more interested in feelings, thoughts and emotions, anyway. They are much easier to quantify. A photo, especially in a research paper, is always subjective.

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Sis,

I would imagine most of the people in your profession already know, and those who don't are probably on in your loop.  I would say that they just need to take our Cindy girl as they find her.  After all, everything you did in the past was still done by you.

[Brooke777]

With your status and accomplishments, in my opinion, it might be benefitial to just tell everyone in a mass memo/email. However, if you do this you will miss out on the interesting reactions.

I will be coming out at work next month. I am going to hold a department wide all hands meeting, and educate everyone in the department on what it means to be transsexual. I see it as a good way to show people that there is nothing wrong with being trans*.

I personally will never be stealth, and because of that I have no issues telling people I am transsexual.