When did you come out at work?

[FTMax]

I've come out to everyone in my personal life, online, etc. My friends and family know that I'm in the process of transitioning, and several of my coworkers know as well. The only person of importance I have left to come out to is my boss. My plan had been to tell him prior to starting HRT, but I was expecting that to be a little further in the future than it is.

So I'm wondering, when did everyone come out at work? Ideally I'd like to do it before I have any significant physical changes.

[ImagineKate]

I've been on this process for only a couple of months and I've told my HR dept early on. I haven't really had the sit down with my manager yet but that will be soon. I have come out to an immediate team member who sits next to me so he doesn't get alarmed with too many changes...

Work I've found seems to think it's not really a big deal. HR just wants to know dates in advance so I can go to the security center and change IDs, photo etc.

[robin s]

I just told my HR manager today and it went awesome. I am as giddy as a school girl. 

[FTMax]

Yay, I'm happy it's gone well so far for both of you. I'm sure it won't be a huge deal for my boss or the rest of my extended organization. I'm a little worried about a few clients, but a recent promotion means that I'll be seeing much less of them. I guess I'm going to have to see if my boss has time for a meeting this week

[ssneha23]

I plan to come out at work just before my ffs hopefully by December next year.

[pianoforte]

Today!

I'm very pre-transition, but since it's a new job I figured I would just go in and talk to the HR person while I was filling out my hiring paperwork.

It's the first time I've used my preferred name outside of a trans support group, and it's gonna be full-time.

I feel really great, confident, and happy about it. I have no established timeline for staying HRT, so I had the paranoid feeling that I was going to be "asking too much" or being a "bother" to them - but I deserve respect and I calmly, casually requested it, and being able to be assertive like that felt really, really good.

[StevieAK]

I just changed little by little. The only time i talked to hr was when one bitch called me freak behind my back. I complained and they told her she was gone is she did it again. I do a great job, show up, dont cause drama..a good employee.

[BreezyB]

I've been coming out to my work over the past few weeks. I started by speaking to a trusted female colleague, who just by chance is employed as our Organisational Change Manager. I know, it's insane how perfect that turned out. Once I had fleshed out some of the details with her, I had documented a written plan of how I would transition at work. My next stop was my HR Manager. That went extremely well and we just had another meeting to finalise some details of the plan today. Surprisingly she advised me today that a strategic focus point next year is gender diversity in the business. This is primarily focussing on the low number of females we have in senior management positions but what a coincidence, I mean great timing to transition at work!

I then met with my General Manager, and then two senior Managers in my department. One of these was my boss. These two discussions happened today and went extremely well. My General Manager has also spoken with the CEO, who has given his full support, and hence the discussion arose of the focus on Gender Diversity next year.

Now that I have the full backing of HR, General Managers and my Managers, I have begun disclosing to my close colleagues, both Male and Female. The support has been overwelming and very positive. My HR Manager have drafted an email we'll send to my team middle of next month to advise of the situation, in fact I thought I would share it below;

-----------------------------------

Dear Colleagues

It is time to tell you some news that is important to me:  recently I took the step to recognise something that I have known consciously for many years and subconsciously for much longer- that I am transsexual. A person who emotionally and psychologically feels that they belong to the opposite sex. Since June I have been carefully putting many pieces into place so that I may transition to becoming a woman and living as one.

You may have noticed some change in me, both in my appearance and my mannerisms. This is part of what is known as transition, the process of changing my physical self to align with how I feel on the inside. Over the next few months you may notice more changes as I continue with my transition. I will continue to present as male until mid 2015 when I will be taking a short period of leave to complete my transition. When I return I will be living full time as a woman and will be changing my gender status and name.  I will make everyone aware when this will happen closer to that time.

I know this may be difficult for some to understand, I too have struggled to make sense of how I've felt for many years. If you would like to ask me anything, I welcome that. If you would prefer to speak with someone else, our HR Manager xxxx has been supporting me and is happy to speak with you.

While these changes will have a significant positive impact on my life, they will have no impact on my role at xxx or our working relationship.  Again, if you have any questions please come and talk to me and I'll be happy to answer them.

Share this news as you think necessary, but please be a little discreet.

Warm regards

xxxxx

--------------------------

I must credit a very dear friend for her help with this, she knows who she is 

We've got one step prior to this, and that is my HR Manager and Gneral Manager are discussing this at the next Executive Team meeting early in December. Then I send the email, and then the entir company will know, well no doubt anyway as I'm sure gossip will travel. We are a company of around 1200 people. I work in a professional capacity and I'm respected highly by my colleagues and the business. Although I'm expecting things to go well, I do also expect some people to struggle. But hey, it'll be fine.

I'll be living full time at home and work following FFS in June 2015, so returning to work as Bree in August 2015.

I can't wait either!

Hugs,
Bree

[Cindy]

Very nice Bree!

I think that will go great.

[BreezyB]

Very nice Bree!

I think that will go great.

Thanks Cindy. I work as a Business Analyst so I seem to have a documented plan for every aspect of transition lol. Some may say extreme, but hey, it works for me. My motto for transition, plan, plan, plan!

[Cindy]

That my sister is, I think the secret behind success. There will be those who do not accept, there will be those who continually 'accidentally' misgender. Plan the witty quip as well, nothing destroys those who wish to be cruel  better than being laughed at!

[FTMax]

Thanks so much for sharing! I know one of the things my boss will likely let me handle is coming out to the rest of our extended company, so your message is an incredibly helpful starting point

[BreezyB]

That my sister is, I think the secret behind success. There will be those who do not accept, there will be those who continually 'accidentally' misgender. Plan the witty quip as well, nothing destroys those who wish to be cruel  better than being laughed at!

I totally agree Cindy. My favourite is when a colleague says to me "your looking really feminine you know", I reply with "why thankyou, Im participating in a social experiment to understand how far we can shift the balance of gender before an individual notices. So thankyou, I think we've found that point". I got my ears pierced last night, clearly I'm past the point of "gee, I hope they don't notice anything feminine about me" lol. Let's just say no one even blinked an eyelid lol.

But on a serious note, my transition has been gradual, I haven't just turned up in a dress, and won't until middle of next year. They've had sufficient chance to be shocked by just small changes.

Thanks so much for sharing! I know one of the things my boss will likely let me handle is coming out to the rest of our extended company, so your message is an incredibly helpful starting point

No problems at all. From my experience, I wouldn't be too concerned about your changes from HRT. Of course it depends on where you work. But the changes have been gradual for me, and have worked to gradually introduce Bree to the company. Just have the plan ready to execute. I got to a point where I realised people were noticing, skin was smoother, hair was longer, eyebrows were more shaped, ears were more pierced .... Lol, ok, so I have been pushing the envelope just a little. But definetly have a plan. Do you have a HR Department?

[BreezyB]

And this is very useful too;

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,2038.msg15505.html#msg15505

[FTMax]

We do not. Technically I take care of all the HR functions for the business. The only person above me is our branch owner/president. I don't think any of our offices around the world have an HR person. All of those functions typically get divided up and given to different people until they need someone in my role (operations management).

I have a plan in my head, so I will probably end up putting that on paper over the weekend. I think my big concern with not disclosing prior to starting HRT is not knowing how quickly changes will occur, and obviously there's not a clear cut timeline for that in any case. I just don't want to blindside any clients I see biweekly or monthly and have those relationships get weird.

[BreezyB]

I think that sounds wise. You clearly have thought about your particular situation and how you have client you see regularly which you don't want to upset. I think for me there were changes in terms of skin in around three months. Personally I think the other noticeable changes were brought on by me, or at least made more noticeable by me. And I certainly found a point at which I needed to get things on the table.

I suppose with transition I think about a lot of the Change Management I've had to do on Projects. One of the rules we use is to not disclose or communicate something too far in advance of something actually eventuating. The reason behind this being people generally forget or lose interest. You think that would be a good thing with Transition but the purpose of communication really is to inform and prepare others for what's coming up. Communicating to early without anything actually eventuating or showing can actually leave the person thinking nothing's happening, when really it is, just really really slowly.

I chose to have the plan ready, then execute it when I felt it was needed. You could do the same in terms of having your communications plan ready, all the emails ready to send, so when you do need to communicate, all you need to do is pull the trigger.