Help with employer!

[Shodan]

It is *so* very important to wait until you are absolutely sure about transitioning before coming out at work, and then once you have made the final decision don't look back or be wishy-washy about it. Employers and colleagues will support one transition, but if you later decide to de-transition or otherwise show indecision it will not be well received. I knew this so while I was still deciding I was very careful not to let too many clues loose at work. Because of this some people were quite shocked when they found out

The only thing I was being wishy-washy about was when the date for my transition at the workplace is. At this point, barring any unforseen circumstances, I'm going to be making the leap this April. If I don't set a definite date I'm just going to waffle about indefinitely. 😕 And you know what? For the most part, I'm ready. The only thing I feel that I'm really missing (besides an extensive wardrobe) is knowing how to hide the beard shadow with makeup. There's a place not too far from here that gives lessons, so sometime early January I'm going to go there. Then I have no more excuses.

My own company previously employed a TS person but I was the first employee to transition in place. Our CEO is female and she made sure that adequate training was in place for the staff (at my suggestion) and she has made it very clear to everyone that any tomfoolery toward me will not be tolerated. So far to my knowledge there hasn't been any.

What did the training consist of? Can you point me to any online resources that can give me something of an idea? I'm not only the first person to transition here, I'm also the only TS person we know of in the company, so this whole thing is new to all of us.

[JustASeq]

Here's the letter I wrote to some 500 employees at my work when I came out. I did not talk to HR first. I called my mom, came out to her, walked back inside my office and drafted and sent the following email.

Hello friends,

Today I am sending this email to clarify some things personally, as well as potentially benefiting other trans* (transgender, transsexual, ->-bleeped-<-, genderqueer, genderfluid, non-binary, gender->-bleeped-<-, genderless, agender, non-gendered, third gender, two-spirit, bigender, trans man and trans woman) folks moving forward.

Please take some time to read over this email as it is a very important subject.

What are PGPs?
PGPs are "Preferred Gender Pronouns" and are very important to many people including the trans* and non-gender conforming communities.  Not to say that gender pronouns are not important to those folks who identify with how they were assigned at birth, but it is much more prevalent for a trans* person to get misgendered.

What is misgendering and why is it bad?
To misgender is to refer to a person using terms (pronouns, nouns, adjectives...) that express the wrong gender, either accidentally or on purpose. There is no correct PGP other than the ones preferred by any one individual. When someone is misgendered it can not only have an adverse affect on productivity, self-esteem, but the overall state of one's mental health.

This being said, for me personally, I find it rather hard to concentrate on being productive at work or productive in general when I am misgendered since I spend more time thinking about how to get folks to not misgender me than actually being productive.

    If someone you're very close to needs you to use new pronouns to refer to them, your bond should be important enough to you that you make that effort.

    If someone you're not very close to needs you to use new pronouns to refer to them, you barely even know them and it's not difficult for you to make that effort.

    If you've noticed that this is a catch-22 where the only option is for you to make an effort to use trans* peoples' pronouns that's because it is.


Which brings me to my next topic. I have begun to transition to living life as the female identified person I am, which means I am currently most comfortable going by feminine pronouns/nouns (She/Her/Hers/Sequoia). Should anyone ever find themselves in a situation where they feel they may be "outing" me as a transgendered woman, feel free to use neutral pronouns/nouns (They/Them/Their/Sequoia).

Also, never feel scared to ask a new person their PGPs or say "I'm sorry." should you slip up and use the wrong name/pronoun. I understand that change is hard, but this is something that is very important.

Thanks again for all of your support, I truly feel honored to work in such an open workplace with so many amazing people. Feel free to ask any questions you might have about my situation specifically since I can't really talk for all trans* folks.



I know that this might not work for everybody, but this is also something that spawned a quarterly email from HR talking about PGPs and why they are important. I hope this helps you 🙂

[Shodan]

More updates!

I hope that people are finding this, at the very least, educational. This whole process is new to me, so by being totally open with what's going on here, I'm hoping that people can learn from my actions (both my successes and mistakes) and to get some good feedback on it. So this week we had to do mandatory training for "Code of Business Conduct and Ethics" During the course on discrimination and harassment I had noticed that they had updated the verbiage to include Gender Identity and Gender Expression like I suggested. It was even in the boring monotone voiceover an everything! Yay!

So here's a letter I sent out in regards to the whole Facebook Fiasco:

Good morning everybody.

I hope the holidays have treated you all well, and I'd like to give you all an update to my transition.

HEALTH INSURANCE

Currently Cigna does not fully cover me. In the EOB it states that "transsexual surgery including medical or psychological counseling and hormonal therapy in preparation for, or subsequent to, any such surgery" is exempt. It is a common misconception that surgery is the desired end in a successful transition. This is not the case and In fact many people choose not to undergo such surgery. However, this limitation does mean that hormone replacement therapy and psychological counseling is explicitly not covered. It also doesn't list which surgery is excluded. For example, if a transgender man gets uterine cancer and has a hysterectomy, is that covered? For most insurance companies, it is not. It is additionally problematic because there is no real way to prove that hormone therapy and gender counseling isn't in preparation for surgery, which makes it very easy for insurance companies to deny coverage to transgender patients. While they are covering my medications right now, as soon as I start making the process to change my gender marker (both within the company and legally) I will no longer be able to slip under the radar, so to speak, and will most likely end up having to pay full costs. I'm not entirely sure how to go about changing this. Usually a change of this magnitude is effected by mandates from the federal or state government and not by individuals.

TRANSITION DATES

I've thought long and hard about this, and I've decided that I want to fully transition by the end of April. I needed to set a hard and fast date for myself or else I'll just keep on waffling about it and never get any closer to actually doing it. This will give us a good four months or so to come up with a solid gameplan on how we want to handle this transition.

COMMUNICATION

It has come to my attention that a fellow employee has found my Facebook profile. This is a little problematic since I'm fully out to my family and friends there, and have even changed my name to reflect what I prefer to go by (Katherine.) This lead up to a very good conversation that I had with  Paul about it, and he assured me that this will not be a problem. However, there are some lingering doubts that once the cat is out of the bag, you can't get it back in. Fortunately, I haven't seen any change in behavior towards me from my fellow employees, which means that either Paul's assurances are founded,  or I'm completely oblivious. Again, I'm not entirely sure what to do at this point. Do we want to send out communication to my fellow employees here in New Jersey that explains the situation? Or do we want to wait until the end of April when we start the transitioning process?  Please let me know what you think about this.


Thank you,

To which the VP of HR replied:

Erik,

I am in receipt of your email.  I hope you have had a great holiday season.

With respect to health insurance, you should work directly with Cigna or our Lennar benefits director, Melissa.

To the extent you would like some sort of formal communication to the others in the office, please contact me with your preferences on what you would like communicated and when.  We will be as cooperative as reasonably possible with your wishes on this to the extent allowed by applicable law and company practice.

Because Facebook is a public forum for social media expression, we are not able to limit who has access to the pages of associates.  The company will expect that all associates govern themselves according to the expectations as set forth in the Associate Reference Guide and based on your email it sounds like associates are complying. 

So. Progress I guess? At least I set a firm date on my transition to full time. That'll give me a concrete goal to work for instead of 'whenever I feel ready,' because let's face it: I'll never feel like I'm ready.