Getting a job with acceptable feminine features?

[Janet Merai]

So I am trying to get a job yet I cannot bring myself to look masculine or "the man" like most employers/managers seem to want me to be (even some supportive people around me tell me I may just have to be who I do not want to be for the moment) not myself for a while.

I am not the best when it comes to getting a job but, I usually have long hair and I definitely appear to be gay when it comes to communicating and body language.
Does anyone have advice about this?

This is more of a red-neck town as said by my siblings and parents and I do not know what to do, not being myself just makes me depressed.

[Renate]

Decide if you are male or female, present as that and be friendly and confident.

[Janet Merai]

You make a good point, I am not around my parents or family in the work-force, so that kind of makes things easier :3

Thank you XD

[Tammy Hope]

Decide if you are male or female, present as that and be friendly and confident.

Hmmm....

I share the problem of the OP. I don't think I could credibly present as female right now. But I'd much prefer to be employed without having to "remascilinize" too.

Seems a bit of a conflict of interests.

Of course, at the moment, there are no jobs period, outside of things I lack the experience or the training for, or, as I am currently attempting - commission sales.

Still, on the current attempt, I must - MUST make a sale in the next few days or I'll run out of money entirely.

So I'm still watching the job market for a more reliable source of income.

[badpagirl]

i share the same sentiment... Here in the Philippines, i've been disriminated few times... upon seeing my CV with my picture on it, they will all get suprised why name is masculine then my pic is so femine(yeah i have a long hair and feminine face)... One time, i was applying for a job. The recruiter talked to me in person before conducting my initial interview. He told me that they are not accepting cross dressers/ts/tg. i was shocked. He said its their clients request. So i didnt force myself. I just walked away. But i got really depressed.

Now, my advise to you is to look for a job that will accept you for who you are and what you are. you dont like to pretend all the time. after all, you might not be comfortable about your job. right now, im working in a company that full accepts cross dressers, and im happy about it.

good luck to your search!

[yabby]

I am not the best when it comes to getting a job but, I usually have long hair and I definitely appear to be gay when it comes to communicating and body language.
Does anyone have advice about this?

i tried acting most of my life so far i did not manage to be a good actor and people where not convinced by my acting so i decided to stop paying attention to my body language and facial expressions.

This is more of a red-neck town as said by my siblings and parents and I do not know what to do, not being myself just makes me depressed.

if you can move to a more accepting place do it, it is not easy to transition when you are concerned about finding a job then about walking the street then about your security and so on....

[Autumn]

I've dressed butchly female for most of the 2 years that I've been at my current job and the only comments I've gotten were how much everyone likes my various shoes - well, and a couple of comments when I passed through while off the clock, but mostly by a particularly stupid and problematic child who got herself fired eventually unrelated to me.

I interviewed for a second job around the turn of the year, what a debacle that was for a variety of reasons, but when I was being asked if I'd cut my hair and he had to check if it was allowed under corporate policy because they were a 'clean cut' corporation, and I realized that I'd have to buy an entirely new set of shirts, that really spurred me on to a lot more internal debate about career, transition, and life. Because of the rut/stability that I was in for so long, a lot of stuff didn't really register. I never quite considered trasition as a reality til then and it's taken half a year for me to decide that I think I am going to.

I have enough trouble looking myself in the face when I'm due for a laser appointment, or when I'm wearing glasses. If I had a men's haircut and had to dress like one, I'd probably not be able to get out of bed in the morning.

[Jaimey]

Confidence and being comfortable in your own skin are what you need to get hired.  If you're comfortable, the interviewer will be and vice versa.  As long as you aren't forcing it down people's throats, you should be fine.  You might also find that small town women find effeminate men endearing and most importantly, nonthreatening (I'm assuming you generally present male).  Use it to your advantage. 

[TallKatie]

Getting a job as a male with long hair is hard, even if you're not using feminine body language!  I don't know that it would be easier if presenting as a woman obviously in transition, but I do know that long hair as a male does cost job offers.

I'm not in your shoes, but my guess would be that if you're going to be discriminated against either way, you may as well be discriminated against for who you really are, not for someone you pretend to be to avoid discrimination!

[Ms Jessica]

I just got a job at Old Navy-- second job to supplement the income, pay the mortgage and all that kind of jazz.  Supposed to start on Thursday.  Hope I haven't jinxed it by telling everyone. 

Anyway, I filled out the application with my male name, but my cell phone, dress, presentation, everything else is Jessica.  The phone conversation was a little interesting when we were setting up the first interview:
Him: So we'll see you Thursday at 5:30 for the interview.
Me: Sounds great.  Ummm, there's something that you might want to note on my application. 
Him: What's that?
Me: [male name] is my legal name.  I don't use it for anything really and I go by Jessica all the time. 
Him: [male name] is your legal name.... (you could hear him wrapping his head around it)
Me: yes
Him: but you go by Jessica.... (it was starting to click)
Me: that's right.
Him: You go by Jessica.... but [male name] is your legal name. (He finally had it)
Me: yes.  I'm getting my name changed soon, so it shouldn't be a problem.    (I was smiling and trying to convey happiness and confidence, it makes my voice sound cheerier I think). 

I feel bad doing this to people, outing myself when I pay with a credit card or something like that, because I feel like it's a borderline mean practical joke.  The problem is, if you put a name down on a job application that isn't your legal name, they can fire you or not hire you in the first place for putting false information on a job app.  Or so I've heard from people that do hiring and firing for small-ish retail stores-- Starbucks managers, etc.  YMMV.  So I had to use my male name because I don't have my name change finished yet. 

It was tough.  There's a lot of places that won't hire visibly trans people even if their hiring policies don't discriminate on gender identity or expression.  Part of it is being in the right place at the right time, part of it is confidence, and part of it is finding people who don't let things like being trans get in the way of hiring good people.  I ended up applying to like 10 places, and Old Navy was the only one that called me back. 

[Syne]

If you confuse the "norms" they tend to want you away from them and off their radar. It was the main reason some did not want to hang with me out in public during my genderqueer days right before I went FT.

YMMV

[Tammy Hope]

Well, I was trying a comission sales thing (in home demos) even though I'm no salesman...but I got too low on cash. It was all hinged on selling something the first week and I didn't.

Now I'm down to about $50 bucks and hoping something else breaks soon.

I'd feel worse about my mixed presentation except I found it hard to get a job even before. And with each passing your my work history looks worse...

[Mister]

So, you admit you're not the best at getting a job.  That's the first step toward solving a problem, right?

If you're unemployed in this economy, the last thing you want to do is shoot yourself in the foot.  Unfortunately, being a readable transperson does exactly this in more places than not.  If you need a job, do whatever you can to get it.  Don't want to work weekends? Oh well.  Won't settle for less than 3 weeks vacation? Too bad.  Present as status-quo looking as you can, in whichever gender you can pull it off the best. 

[Ms Jessica]

seconding what Mister said.  Maybe a headhunter?

[MattieGirl]

Hi everyone (my first post, but was drawn to this thread).

I've never been out in public as female, and haven't taken any prescription hormones (though did take herbs for 6 months at one point). But people do often think I'm gay when they first meet me, but I don't think I've been discriminated against because of it.

What I wanted to add just was that it probably depends a lot on where you live. There are some employers out there who go out of their way to make sure that you're not discriminated against just because you may be perceived as being "gay" or "transgendered". In my case I've had several people (one who hired me) tell me after they got to know me that they originally thought I was gay - so I guess I have some sort of aura that I give off.

Anyway, it could be that being perceived as a "gay man" could present less a problem than being genderqueer. I seem to have been hired in the past without a problem, but people just think I'm gay. I think another poster said it right when they said it's all about your confidence and comfort with yourself. If you make a connection with the interviewer and are still professional you have a way better chance to overcome stereotypes.

[Ms Jessica]

Anyway, it could be that being perceived as a "gay man" could present less a problem than being genderqueer. I seem to have been hired in the past without a problem, but people just think I'm gay. I think another poster said it right when they said it's all about your confidence and comfort with yourself. If you make a connection with the interviewer and are still professional you have a way better chance to overcome stereotypes.

Depending on company (and location) being gay isn't usually much of an obstacle.  Everyone's situation is different, of course, so that's not intended to be a blanket statement.  Being gay is something you can keep to yourself, at least during an interview process.  Being genderqueer in any way is usually a lot more obvious, and for some employers, I'm sure they don't hire a lot of us because they perceive that there would be more comments or complaints from customers.  I don't know that such a thing would happen, but the perception could definitely keep a person from getting hired. 

[xsocialworker]

Jobs that usually don't require "males" to get a hair-cut
1) Government if you don't wear a uniform
2) Major retailers
3) Creative jobs
4) Places like Best Buy

I worked for 32 years as a "man" and I had long hair the entire time because I worked for a state and then a major city.
Post Merge: June 24, 2009, 07:26:43 AM
This city ( in the South) also ignored my shoulder bag, women's pantsuits, pastel shirts, jewelry, and light make-up. I was rather surprised at the tolerance I discoverd. Of course this city had a City Manager with dreds and allowed uniformed cops to wear beards. Also unusual
Post Merge: June 24, 2009, 08:28:36 AM
I forgot. This city also never had any laws against "cross-dressing" in public . This was 1970 when many places including NYC arrested people for "cross-dressing".
Post Merge: June 24, 2009, 09:31:41 AM
Of course, I was assumed to be Gay and I knew I was talked about by the cops in city vehicle pool.

[kalina]

Add a college or university as a possible employer who wouldn't care what you looked like. At least in a non-administrative position. We have people here with hair down to their bottom of their backs. We have people here with piercings, tattoos, etc.

[Tammy Hope]

I've been applying specifically to places where the jobs were likely to be light on public contact.

I wish I was "artistic" (well, I write but everyone with a keyboard thinks they are a writer now) - that might help.

[kalina]

I work as a computer geek so while my involvement with people should be low, I still get to meet lots of people every day because I manage my labs. I think a computer job is probably the best kind of job for transsexuals. Really, nobody cares what the computer person looks like so long as the job is done.