Susan's Place Transgender Resources

So I am an industrial roboticsist and I work on, offshore oil rigs.

What has be your expserince coming out to your employer, how did you do it?  how did they repond?  How could you have don't it better?  and are there anylaws I should be aware of relating to coming out to an employer?



Related links,

--  I work on the Discoverer Enterpise
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/08/coming-aboard-the-drillship-discoverer-enterprise.html (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/08/coming-aboard-the-drillship-discoverer-enterprise.html)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoverer_Enterprise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoverer_Enterprise)

--  and I crew an Oceaneering ROV  (Remotely Operated Vehical)  You have to love how these boys name things
http://www.oceaneering.com/rovs/rov-systems/millennium-plus-rov/ (http://www.oceaneering.com/rovs/rov-systems/millennium-plus-rov/)
http://www.oceaneering.com/oceandocuments/brochures/rov/ROV%20-%20Millennium%20Plus.pdf (http://www.oceaneering.com/oceandocuments/brochures/rov/ROV%20-%20Millennium%20Plus.pdf)

I'm a software engineer.  When I told HR her first reaction was to think someone said something offensive, reminding me my company has a zero tolerance policy for descrimination.  Then she said not to worry, as long as I continue to do my job everything will be fine.

My boss has been all hung go about it.  He seems outright anxious for me to tell the rest of my co-workers.

As for my coworkers I've been planting seeds so when I come out to them it's more a "oh, that makes sense" instead of a surprise.  Saying that I'd do better as a gatherer than a hunter.  Other stuff.

So far my experience has been positive.  I hope it keeps up.

I do live in a state that can't let me go because I'm trans.  I wanna say there are only 12 states with that protection.

I'm looking forward to reading other responses.

I'm a support analyst/tech writer for a software company. I'd been at my job for about 6.5 years when I announced to my bosses and HR that I'd be transitioning. Shortly before my 7th anniversary there, I came to work as Constance for the first time.

That was in September 2011.

My experience has been overwhelmingly positive. People who had been merely co-workers to David are friends of Constance. There is a handful of co-workers who no longer look at or speak with me. But overall things have been very good.

My employer is based in San Mateo, CA, at the very northern edge of Silicon Valley.

I'm in Australia and protected by anti-discrimination laws. I have not had a single negative reaction for anyone male or female. Like Connie I have more friends and talks with people about stuff than ever before.

BTW I was told by my endo that in her experience, which is vast BTW, is that there are more MtF in the engineering profession than any other. She is also MtF and treats most of the TG people in South Australia.

Good Luck.

As for names I did like NASAs 'manually operated soil moving device' - a shovel.

Cindy

I'm so scared to say anything.  Jesus I'm sitting here at work and I'm trying to get my self top write an anonymous e-mail to HR to feel them out and what could that hurt.  God if I don't want them to trace me back they can't.  I'm that good and I'm terrified.  I'm so scared right now and I have to play it cool and I'm going alittle nuts please  jsut IDK anything.

OK.

Letter to HR,

Use a yahoo or google account, it takes seconds to make one.

Hi
I'm an employee and have been for several years. I have suffered for gender identity disorder all my life and I'm now receiving treatment. I was living and presenting a s a male when in fact I am gender identified as female. I wish to continue my work with the company as my gender has nothing what so ever to do with being able to perform my occupation. Can you let me know what forms etc I need to present and can you confirm that the company supports the anti-sex discrimination laws and that I am legally protected at work against sex discrimination.

I am using a yahoo/google email account as I am very frightened by possible negative reactions. I have been a reliable worker and am happy to meet with HR personal when my position is clarified.

With Best wishes

New Name leave out the second name..


Simple, respond to the reply in a positive manner.

You are doing nothing wrong. It is your life.

Hugs

Let me know the reply

Cindy

Jenn, you'll be fine. IT sounds to me like you're working in a highly skilled environment and quite probably surrounded by very smart people. Smart people are usually pretty cool with transsexualism. I my experience (I also work in a skilled environment but nothing as flash as deep sea robotics lol) I sat down with my boss and said, so this is what I'm doing, any issues? His exact words were
"Mate, you can grow 8 sets of t*ts, 6 heads and 14 knobs and I'd still want to work the rest of my career with you"

Smart people are cool. My boss is a pretty smart character :) Good luck :)

An oil rig is a hell of a boys club and well ya.  Hell having even a normal girl is of note.

I'll try to send that email not having to write it all helps I'm jsut so scared :(

Quote from: Jennifer.L on October 21, 2012, 04:42:32 AM
I'll try to send that email not having to write it all helps I'm jsut so scared :(

Goodluck Jennifer, that's something I'm not brave enough to do for sure.

ps. is that you in your avatar? I'm stunned quite frankly. I would never guess you were born male at all. Wow

pps. Can I have your job? I've always fancied being stuck on an oil rig way out in the North sea or somewhere :p

jesus crist I did it and I only did it because off all the support here I'm getting cold chills like some ones walking over my grave ane that last comment ty so much it got me over the edge and <not allowed>
  What have I done  it's done.  it's done.  ok breath.

Yes its me :D  wow thank you


Update,  The address I got out of the computer bounced back and I had a minor freak-out.  Then spend 31minutes of paniced search and found the name of the houston office HR director.  I couldn't find any email address but I know how they format the adresses and I made a guess.  so far it has not bounced back.  grrrrrrr. 

Good luck :)
I know that waiting is the hardest part, but you've done the right thing and I'm sure you'll get the positive response you're hoping for.
Plus, once you get the response, you can start a dialogue with them and start planning how and when you'll go to work as the real you. That's just so exciting!

Congrats. You had to do it sometime, and now it's done.

I can understand your trepidation. I think it would have been a real cluster->-bleeped-<- if I'd come out at my old job--for years, I was a printer for an international company, at least, until I moved into the desktop publishing division. Most of the people there had very blue-collar mentalities, and the men were very...straight.

Fortunately, I was able to transition at a University of California campus, where the process was essentially a non-issue. I'm not even the only trans employee on my campus.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

o.0  I sent it on sunday?  no wonder I didn't hear back.  should I be more or less worried.  ????   gaaaahhh     Thank you guys so much for listening   I'm so scared and nervious and just the tinyest bit excited

I work in a "good ole boys" type environment as well. It is a bit scary, especially knowing how many of the men think. When I told my boss, I expected to get fired. He just said "it is what it is. Anything else?" Since then, no issues at all. You never know, they might surprise you with how they respond. I hope that email is well received.

They might need a couple of days to decide what to do!

Quote from: Arch on October 22, 2012, 08:51:40 PM
They might need a couple of days to decide what to do!

If this is a new situation for them they may need a couple of days to look at what the laws are and what the corporate policy is.  If there is no corporate policy then they'll probably establish one based first on the law and secondly on the company philosophy.  (Be glad you're not working for Chik-Fa-La!)

Oh bugger this is nuts 0.0  I sent basicly the same thing asking for any kind of replay.  I hope it's not hitting a spam filter.

If you think it IS hitting a spam filter, you can write your concerns into a document (even a simple txt doc works) and then attach that to the email - ensuring the email is simple and to the point and doesn't say anything that might trigger the filter.  Something like:

I am an employee of the company and have a question about policy and how it may affect me.  At this time I prefer to remain anonymous due to the sensitive and personal nature of this issue.  I have sent previous emails  that I'm afraid were lost in the spam filter.  In order to avoid triggering that filter this time I have provided the pertinent details of this issue in the attached document.  Thank you for your assistance with this sensitive issue.  As this is very important to my future with this company, could you please reply acknowledging that you've received and are considering this issue?  I know it may take a few days to determine what the corporate policy is and how it applies to my situation, but please communicate with me if any significant delays develop in this process.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

(new name)

Good luck Jennifer!  I know you've got to be sweating bullets waiting for their response.  I know this is a necessary step, but it certainly takes courage to commit yourself to it.  I hope it all works out.

I would print the email out and add a cover page saying you originally emailed it but with no response. I would then pop it in the internal post. Give the email address you were using and ask for any response to be sent there.

Also, make sure that YOUR email service is not spamboxing THEIR responses.

Oh!  Thats great no holy crap yes ty so much


I was going back and forth here for the last 2 hours trying to deside who to try and contact next.  But thats perfect.  and is so businessy.  Ok jsut got to hit them up for a fax number.  covertly.  but I'm um  good with computer....  so thats not a problem.

Oh I should mention that in my job most of the time I only ever see the people in the office say once every 6 months.  the rest of the time I join a 3 person crew  and we go out on missions.   So I have no fragulated idea what most of the land-lubbers are like and picking on to talk to is hard.

Ok new task and I can do this :D  send a fax to a private and possible unlisted number anonymously but do it in a way that I can receive replays.  I like this game ^.^

If that reply was to me then I am glad it helped you.

Good luck and please let us know how it goes.

x x

Wow so many engineers that is fascinating!

I'm a software engineer but work at a medium company with a lot of young liberally minded people, so I should be fine when I am ready to come out.

I'm from Australia so I'm protected by law, but I've always been scared that my superiors would just treat me harshly and force me to quit. But I guess thats just the usual paranoia!

But it's great to hear so many success stories from similar fields.

I told HR and she proceeded to tell my Boss, the President of the company and the CEO and I kept finding out well after the fact.  Kinda chapped me a bit.  Just some common courtesy in the form of a heads up would have been nice!  Though I guess finding out after may have have saved me some stress.  The President is Pakistani and the CEO is from India so I have all kinds of cross-cultural concerns.

I ended up outing myself to the three people who routinely come in before management does this week.  I did this because when the President found out suddenly legal language started to crop up, all about covering the companies tookis, and that upset me.  Again, I'm protected in the state I live, but I've been laid off under false pretenses before and that wound never healed.  I wanted to let other cube dwellers know so if something about my work seems off they might give me a heads up or if the worst happens I might have some allies.  In the end I do think the legal concerns all boil down to an opening they fear they left for themselves not too long ago so they're still extra sensitive.  Still, I'm having a hard time trusting them.

I've noticed too there seems to be a lot of Software people who are also trans.  I wonder if there's something statistically significant in our numbers?

I hope you hear some good news soon Jennifer, and I wish you luck.

I'm thrilled to contribute to this thread.

I'd like to start off by saying I work in a very male oriented work environment. At work its more a less a good ol' boys club. My career is Automotive sales and have been working at my current dealership for the last 7 years. A lot of my co-workers I have worked with for a LONG time (I feel very fortunate for that.) Over the years I've built myself as this guys guy with the staff.   

I have been slowly coming out at work over the last 3 months. I first started with 3 very close friends and with time I have gained more strength to talk with other co-workers. I'm at a total of a six people at work so far. Over the last couple weeks though I feel like I made the biggest footsteps forward in my transition at the workplace.

Around two weeks ago I went and had a chat with my HR manager. I politely walked into her office and started the conversation by telling her that I had some medical benefit questions then rolled right into being trans. She was surprised at first said your joking right? I've worked with her now for awhile so we kind of had a laugh and I said yes I'm serious then we went into a conversation about GID, and my coming out plan followed by a conversation about clothes. lol. In closing with conversation with her it went wonderful. She told me she is supportive and she thinks the rest of the staff will be too. She said if anyone has a problem with it its their problem you have a right to work here. I kind of figured she would be cool about it. She's a very sweet lady. :)

Recently though my most rewarding coming out experiences at work have been with our stores general manager and used car manager. I'd 1st like to go into detail with our GM. I've known him going on around 4 years. Very good guy. Good ol' boy type from Kansas. I came out to him on the 1st of this month. (Set a goal in my head for the month of November for coming out to EVERYONE at work. Plan on going fulltime is 1.1.13.) Basically just asked him if I could have 20 minutes of his time. He agreed and we took a casual drive around in the golf cart and I laid it out there. He was shocked as well and offered to talk about me in the sales meeting with the entire staff. I told him some of my fears about transitioning at work and he addressed each of them. He said harassing me will not be tolerated and is grounds for termination for any employee he said that he would do whatever he can within his power to make sure I'm happy I also told him my plan on coming out to the rest of the staff. It was truly breathtaking hearing him say that giant relief for me.

BUT better then that was our used car manager today. I thought he would be one of the problems at work because he is extremely homophobic and said some things at times that have had me like whoa after hearing them. I honestly felt like when I told him he would be like basically... and go into a complete disaster. I was prepared for the worst! I wanted to nail coming out to some of the people that I thought would have the biggest problem with it first so picked him to start. So just has my general manager the day before I came out to him while driving around on our golf cart. (love this cart. lol.) So I didn't know how to start it so instead of building into it like I've done with everyone else. I just laid it out there. He was a absolute shock and immediately told me he has my back and it doesn't change anything. I told him I was honestly scared to talk to him. He said you didn't have to be we have known each other for so long. I also told him I value his friendship and I am very thankful to have him in my life.

So yeah thats how its been so far its been a absolute blessing so far working with who I work with. Its awesome knowing that my co-workers have been so great so far. My goal as said before is to come out to everyone this month. Monday I will be coming out to our Customer Relations manager. :)

Its definitely easier coming out the more you do it.

Quote from: Serena Lynn on November 03, 2012, 12:52:36 AM
I'm thrilled to contribute to this thread.

I'd like to start off by saying I work in a very male oriented work environment. At work its more a less a good ol' boys club. My career is Automotive sales and have been working at my current dealership for the last 7 years. A lot of my co-workers I have worked with for a LONG time (I feel very fortunate for that.) Over the years I've built myself as this guys guy with the staff.   

I have been slowly coming out at work over the last 3 months. I first started with 3 very close friends and with time I have gained more strength to talk with other co-workers. I'm at a total of a six people at work so far. Over the last couple weeks though I feel like I made the biggest footsteps forward in my transition at the workplace.

Around two weeks ago I went and had a chat with my HR manager. I politely walked into her office and started the conversation by telling her that I had some medical benefit questions then rolled right into being trans. She was surprised at first said your joking right? I've worked with her now for awhile so we kind of had a laugh and I said yes I'm serious then we went into a conversation about GID, and my coming out plan followed by a conversation about clothes. lol. In closing with conversation with her it went wonderful. She told me she is supportive and she thinks the rest of the staff will be too. She said if anyone has a problem with it its their problem you have a right to work here. I kind of figured she would be cool about it. She's a very sweet lady. :)

Recently though my most rewarding coming out experiences at work have been with our stores general manager and used car manager. I'd 1st like to go into detail with our GM. I've known him going on around 4 years. Very good guy. Good ol' boy type from Kansas. I came out to him on the 1st of this month. (Set a goal in my head for the month of November for coming out to EVERYONE at work. Plan on going fulltime is 1.1.13.) Basically just asked him if I could have 20 minutes of his time. He agreed and we took a casual drive around in the golf cart and I laid it out there. He was shocked as well and offered to talk about me in the sales meeting with the entire staff. I told him some of my fears about transitioning at work and he addressed each of them. He said harassing me will not be tolerated and is grounds for termination for any employee he said that he would do whatever he can within his power to make sure I'm happy I also told him my plan on coming out to the rest of the staff. It was truly breathtaking hearing him say that giant relief for me.

BUT better then that was our used car manager today. I thought he would be one of the problems at work because he is extremely homophobic and said some things at times that have had me like whoa after hearing them. I honestly felt like when I told him he would be like basically... and go into a complete disaster. I was prepared for the worst! I wanted to nail coming out to some of the people that I thought would have the biggest problem with it first so picked him to start. So just has my general manager the day before I came out to him while driving around on our golf cart. (love this cart. lol.) So I didn't know how to start it so instead of building into it like I've done with everyone else. I just laid it out there. He was a absolute shock and immediately told me he has my back and it doesn't change anything. I told him I was honestly scared to talk to him. He said you didn't have to be we have known each other for so long. I also told him I value his friendship and I am very thankful to have him in my life.

So yeah thats how its been so far its been a absolute blessing so far working with who I work with. Its awesome knowing that my co-workers have been so great so far. My goal as said before is to come out to everyone this month. Monday I will be coming out to our Customer Relations manager. :)

Its definitely easier coming out the more you do it.

Serena that is wonderful. its always good when people in the workplace are so good about it. sounds like you must be a pretty cool person for  them to be so chill with you after the shock factor, ;)

Well 2 places ended up letting me go shortly after telling them. For other reasons of course. Couple others just didn't care. Eh I guess it's luck of the draw. Good luck in it all.

On the being trans front it's good that my company really only cares that I do my job.  I have these one on one meetings with my boss every two weeks and I thought it was a good idea to keep him updated on what's going on with me.  The message I got from my last one is he doesn't care about me, as a person at all.  When I left his office on Weds I felt like nothing more than a commodity from his words and from the actions of the company CEO.  I'm just something to be bought and sold to these people.  Nearly cried on the bus ride home it affected me so badly.  My boss flat out said that he doesn't care why we need to go out of office, just tell him so he can mark it.  He's putting himself in a position to not even be able do the common courtesy of saying to anyone I work with, "Have fun on your vacation!"  Then my company is holding this silly competition and we employees are encouraged to compete.  Why?  So management can run around saying their people won their own, company sponsored, competition. Bias much?

I think from my boss on up I'm dealing with a bunch of narcissists.  Makes me miss my old job and old boss a lot.  But the current gig is great for transitioning cause I've been thinking for a while it'd be nice to move on to a new position round the time I change my name.  To somewhere that didn't know me as a male first.  The lousy management at my current gig just gives me extra incentive to press forward.

Though if anyone has any idea how I can tell my boss how bad he made me feel, I'd be glad to hear it.

Quote from: Misato33 on November 03, 2012, 08:30:15 AM
Though if anyone has any idea how I can tell my boss how bad he made me feel, I'd be glad to hear it.

Personally I would keep quiet and keep transitioning.

Not knowing where to start, the first thing I did was review the corporate anti discrimination and sexual harassment. I got lucky where I work and gender identification was included in both anti discrimination and sexual harassment policies. Next thing I took one of my co-workers and tested the waters by coming out to him first. He was a good friend, and it went all right. He wasn't phased by it or anything. So I ultimately asked my manager if I could have a one on one as there is something I need to talk about. So I told her and she was ok with it. She got me in contact with our HR person, who was a big help. So my original plan was to keep quiet among the team, then a reorg happened a year later which threw me onto a much larger team.

I mean this reorg happened out of the blue, literally one day a manager came up and said hi, I am your manager and you now report to me. I was like crap now I got to tell a bigger team. Before I came out to them, I let the new boss know first. I think by telling her up front that gave me some brownie points because she was like "Yea I knew something was up, but honestly I wasn't sure how to approach the subject so I just let it be." Also by doing that I believe it established a trust factor with her. So I wrote this huge letter to our new team explaining my situation and honestly only person truly I was worried that would blow up because he is extremely religious. After I sent it took a few hours for to sink in, but the response was pleasantly surprising everyone was cool with what I was doing except the one guy. Many hours later he approached me and was like we need to talk in private so I was like sure we went to conference across from the security desk and he started going on how religious he was and then starting going for the bible quotes and I simply said, "Don't go there. You have no right to pass judgement on me. That is for me and God to worry about when the time comes. I am not asking you to be my best friend, I am simply asking you to respect me at work as we have no ties outside of work" Then he was like, "Well in that case, I am going to treat you different. I am going to treat you like I treat all the other women here and not ask for your help." I was said, "ummm ok. Thanks.?"  That was that with that. He is one of those men that believes that women shouldn't be allowed to work essentially.

My HR person eventually referred me to our Affirmative Action group for the name and changing the gender designation in the records (insurance purposes). They were ok a bit slow but ok to work with and ultimately told me, "If anyone gives you trouble, you call us and we will handle it." The only thing the HR person did not know was I could have been using the female restroom from the get go two years ago according to our Affirmative Action group.

I feel pretty good about the whole thing except for the one co-worker honestly and over time he learned to deal with it and eventually accept it. Even thanked me later when he got promoted because he said, "I changed his way of thinking." :)

I suppose you're right bev. I won't/can't change them.  Best to just work toward moving on.

Quote from: Misato33 on November 03, 2012, 09:56:04 PM
I suppose you're right bev. I won't/can't change them.  Best to just work toward moving on.

It's his problem not yours. NEVER let the jerks get you down. You are far better than they are. You are moving forward and achieving things, they are living in a delusional time warp.

Quote from: Cindy James on November 04, 2012, 12:44:09 AM
It's his problem not yours. NEVER let the jerks get you down. You are far better than they are. You are moving forward and achieving things, they are living in a delusional time warp.

You do not have to fight every fight Cindy, you pick the ones that matter. If Misato is planning on leaving then it is better to use them to fund whatever needs funding, do whatever needs doing and then leave for a better place.

I do not think it has to have anything to do with being trans - I have had several such 'incidents' in my working life. I have even managed to torpedo some of my worst line managers over the years. One in particular 'credited' me with ending his career at a given company, but successfully disposing of managers makes other managers nervous and marks you out as a 'troublemaker'. That is why I left and started my own business.

Sorry if I was negative bev. I fight every fight. And I didn't and don't mean it rudely.

Ok  I'm at the 'top of the tree' career wise. To me there is not an inch I can give. If I show any sign of weakness I'll have the hounds of hell tell people 'I told you so'. I have shattered the glass ceiling as a TG woman and I will not let anyone back away from that.  The last person at my level who went public is my gynaecologist, she is awesome but lost ground and respect professionally.  I won't let that happen to me in respect for her and for the next woman or man at my level who lives their life.


I cannot live a quite life. I have a choice and my choice is that I will not allow discrimination against people to go unnoticed what ever that discrimination is.

I'm strong enough and I'm a bitch enough, and I love people far too much to ever back away.

But I also respect those who cannot do that, and I do not mean that in any condescending manner.  I can fight because of where I am. So I will.

Hugs and take care Honey

Cindy

The management culture of work has no problem with me being trans.  And I do want to talk about this on a cultural level in order to give the benefit of the doubt to the individuals.

The reason mananagement has no problem is one, I am in a state with legal protection, and two being cool about me gives them a narrative that they can use to say how "awesome" they and the company are.  But they don't care about their people in the cubes.  It really feels like they just want us to be stereotypical geeks.  I like Star Wars and some video games well enough, but I so don't want to talk about them all the bloody time.  I'm a musician, a certified private pilot, I have stories divorced from geek culture and I imagine my colleagues do too.  But all I hear about is Star Wars and video games.  At least the guy in the cube across from me will talk about his kid.  Great guy, and from the sound of it great Dad too.

I just don't want to get fired or become known as difficult to work with.  Before I began HRT my anger had me on a path of self-destruction.  I'd run so hot all the time it was unhealthy.  My chest would hurt from the anger and stress.  For my health and well being I need to find a better way.  I get the feeling that I can't talk candidly to management either.  Cause if they did listen, they'd find a way to twist their listening into another narrative of how great they and the company are.  Classic listening but not hearing.

I have reason to be happy, because how these people operate means there isn't a problem for my transition.  Just at the same time it feels so belittling.

I would say there is a certain advantage to having bosses that only care about the bottom line, and not you as a person, as far as transition goes. Despite my company being Mormon owned and operated, and having no antidiscrimation policy for gender identity or sexual orientation, I have seen at least one other transwoman working here.

Then again my company might be an extreme case, I recently needed a printoff from my manager, so I went to the office and asked if X was there and she said "I am X". Silly, but despite having working here for 8 months now, I had no clue what she looked like, I had never seen her before.

I am not "out" to them at work yet, but to be honest I really don't have to be, all I really have to do is submit whatever legal documentation happens from name and gender changes. I never see them anyway, and I don't directly work with anyone else.

I am thinking of buying my own truck if I can't get a job in a different field, and I certainly cannot discriminate against myself if I run my own small business.