Susan's Place Transgender Resources

This is the second time I have done this. Anyway, I have kind of outted myself. I am going as a cis (though masculine looking) female at work. However, I have had two incidences where I inadvertently outted myself. Not sure the woman got it today, as I saw her and she said nothing.

But the first time I said to someone something like I wasn't exactly a girl. She is pretty cool generally so I didn't worry but she definitely picked up on it. Today I signed an email Jay instead of JJ. Yikes both of these people are cool and I wouldn't have a problem telling either.

--Jay

I never have done anything accidentally but I would say at least you're able to test the waters there a bit. If I have read your posts in the past correctly you do plan on taking T. That is going to ultimately out you there if you plan on staying at that job while in transition.

I haven't ever 'accidentally' outed myself.  But as Simon says if you begin T while at that workplace, obviously you will out yourself.  At my last job, I had been there for over 4 years working as a man before I even started my transition.  Before I started dressing as a female and then began hrt I pretty much had to speak with my boss about it.  So I outed myself at work too, it didn't go over as smoohtly as I would've hoped.  I got laid off a few months ago, so the next job I get at least I can actually start out as me! 

I'm glad you felt like you would be comfortable telling those two people and that they would be good with it.  I hope things go well for you.

Quote from: Simon on December 06, 2012, 05:49:59 PM
I never have done anything accidentally but I would say at least you're able to test the waters there a bit. If I have read your posts in the past correctly you do plan on taking T. That is going to ultimately out you there if you plan on staying at that job while in transition.

Yeah you are correct. I'm going to start T, but I am retiring in May. My endo appt isn't til Mar. So I don't think I'll have too many changes in a couple months. But maybe good to test the waters anyways?

Jay

I didn't out myself pre-outing, but there was one time I outed myself post-transition. NEVER AGAIN.

Quote from: Simon on December 06, 2012, 05:49:59 PM
I never have done anything accidentally but I would say at least you're able to test the waters there a bit. If I have read your posts in the past correctly you do plan on taking T. That is going to ultimately out you there if you plan on staying at that job while in transition.

Pretty much this.

I haven't outed myself out on accident though it's becoming ever likely that I'm going to do that since I'll be back to living with my parents in a week.

I haven't heard anything, I think she might have considered this a typo (though a strange one perhaps). But she might be discrete enough that she would never know that she suspects something.

I've had a comment or two where I think people suspect that I might be trans. Sometimes I was right and in some cases I'll never know. For instance, this male teacher opened the door for me. I never liked this particular "privilege". Anyway I said he didn't need to open the door for me. He said "Well you're walking like a girl". "Like a girl" implies that I was walking like a girl but I wasn't actually a girl (perhaps). Though I guess you could read that a different way. Due to this guy's history, he is someone who I suspect knows trans people.

--Jay

I almost outed myself accidently tonight at the firm's Christmas party. We were all wicked drunk. I wasn't too bad, since I was still able to use my chopsticks and I didn't spill anything. But, I almost said to one of the girls I work closely with "what would you do if I told you that I was really a guy?" or something like that. I didn't, though it was on the tip of my tongue several times during the course of our dinner. If I had another drink I probably would have.

Though I started testing the waters some I think, I told her instead that I was going to cut all my hair off, and she asked "like a masculine haircut?" and I said "yeah" and went on a bit about how it's just so long that I can't do anything with it. But, I notice now that she just jumped right into "masculine haircut" instead of just thinking that I meant something like a pixie cut. 

I've heard of guys saying well drunk that they were born women, and nobody believed them-- yeah sure guffaw.

I had a similar thing with my haircut though. I went from sort of androgynous-male to male off the ear, to arch with clippers. The person who cut my hair asked me after the first cut "are you ready to go off the ears now". It was like she was assuming I would because it's a male cut. I ended up telling her I was trans. She didn't sound surprised, but she didn't seem to know either.

But it makes me wonder if some people have a feeling you are trans without really knowing about it. I've had this experience quite a number of times.


--Jay

Quote from: aleon515 on December 07, 2012, 11:34:01 PM

I had a similar thing with my haircut though. I went from sort of androgynous-male to male off the ear, to arch with clippers. The person who cut my hair asked me after the first cut "are you ready to go off the ears now". It was like she was assuming I would because it's a male cut. I ended up telling her I was trans. She didn't sound surprised, but she didn't seem to know either.

Yeah I've had people not want to give me haircuts because it seemed too manly; I think they were afraid my mom out in the lobby or sitting area (whatever you call it) wouldn't approve. Later on, I would just get haircuts from one of my friend's moms who was a hairstylist and a lesbian--so she'd just give me these crazy haircuts that were so awesome but I could never wear now.

Quote from: aleon515 on December 07, 2012, 11:34:01 PM

But it makes me wonder if some people have a feeling you are trans without really knowing about it. I've had this experience quite a number of times.

I am wondering that myself now... I dress like a girl at work, and even wear makeup, but I think I still walk like a man, even in heels. I always feel like I am pounding on the floorboards whenever I walk on them. I get along well with all the ladies there, but I still have the moments where I just completely don't fit into the girly thing. Like, that same girl just got engaged and last week she put her hand up to me to show me her engagement ring and tell me all about it said "so what do you think?" Me, not noticing anything but knowing that she always gets her nails done said "Ah, I like your nails." It's probably all the little things like the way I walk and stuff like that that may be putting things like that into people's minds.

I also had another job where I still presented as female, although not as femme, and a coworker asked me "do you have a girlfriend, ahhh I mean boyfriend?" Lol, I never talked about my personal life, but I guess everyone thought I was a lesbian or trans or something not straight.

When I applied to the job I'm at, I really worried whether they would take me as male or female since I changed my name on my resume. After I got hired in, I found out they hire a lot of LGBT people. With my coworkers, it's been very relaxed since then, and I've educated quit a few of them about gender and identity. Coworkers and clients refer to me as both he/she, but it never interferes with the job that we are doing.

I've had male and female coworkers engage me in conversations about gender, and by being honest with them, they usually learn a lot about how I perceive things, if that makes any sense? I think we need to start being less defensive about what we're going through. If trans people are working in an environment where it is safe to talk about gender and identity, we should educate the people around us instead of hiding and trying to pass as cis.

This kinda has to do with the topic but really it's something that came to mind while reading the posts. I have noticed from personal experience that the higher the intellect of the employees of a work environment the better reaction I've typically encountered.

I always tended to find positions in book stores, coffee shops, libraries, and other places where people are generally more worldly. Coming from a small town I did so intentionally in the hopes that I would find acceptance if I didn't quite pass. It worked for me.

I did end up at a position in a diner for awhile where I was a waiter and a grill cook. The clientele were for the most part older on the early shifts so no issues there. They took me as a young boy. I did catch a ton of crap working third shift. I can think of one thing that happened was a guy standing up (this was when the "bar rush" came in after 2am). He put his arm over my shoulder and asked "Do you know what a ->-bleeped-<- is?", I said "No, why are you trying to find a date?". He said "sure ya do" and rubbed my shoulder as if he was feeling if I had a binder on (thank God I wear a strapless binder). He then lifted his shirt and asked if I wanted to touch his chest. I told him no and all I wanted was his order. At that point his gf told him to sit down and shut up. He got mad and stormed off to the bathroom. His gf looked at me with tears in her eyes and mouthed "I'm so sorry". I said "it's ok" and she said "no, it's not" and slipped $20 in my pocket. A nice gesture but I was shaken up a bit.

I'm just saying this to you guys because when you're early in transition it is best to work in an environment that is accepting. Getting up every day dreading if someone is going to out you or ask you asinine questions isn't worth it. If you're not in a position to work at a professional job then there are still ways to protect your sanity and identity. Just analyze the location and types of people who frequent where you potentially might work.

It might be ideal to be out, but I feel it would needlessly complicate my life when I only have one more year to go til I retire. I also work in a very conservative field (teaching). I have students (who probably wouldn't care) but parents who might. OTOH, the staff like Simon talked about are pretty liberal and educated and I am out to a few people as trans.

The situation you described, Simon, seems abusive.

Since I am pre-T, I maybe look like I am gay or something. I am pretty sure that's what people think (they are fine with this, we have several openly gay teachers). It is more my own social dysphoria-- being addressed as female all the time. I hate this, and some days it bothers me a lot more than others.


--Jay

Quote from: aleon515 on December 08, 2012, 01:17:44 AM
It might be ideal to be out, but I feel it would needlessly complicate my life when I only have one more year to go til I retire.

The situation you described, Simon, seems abusive.

Truthfully Jay, in the situation you're in I would lay low for the final year, get my retirement benefits, and then go full steam ahead.

Oh yeah, that is just one instance that I described. I've had my fair share of crap thrown my way. It has done two things, it has made me extremely thick skinned but on the flip side I am also jaded and close people out. I have a ten foot wall built up. I don't think it's uncommon for people in our situations to be distant to others though.

Jay, you haven't necessarily outed yourself if you let slip your name. It's not exclusively masculine. If anyone asks, just say it's a nickname. After all, you go by JJ, yes?

Quote from: Simon on December 08, 2012, 01:05:27 AM
This kinda has to do with the topic but really it's something that came to mind while reading the posts. I have noticed from personal experience that the higher the intellect of the employees of a work environment the better reaction I've typically encountered.

I'm just saying this to you guys because when you're early in transition it is best to work in an environment that is accepting. Getting up every day dreading if someone is going to out you or ask you asinine questions isn't worth it. If you're not in a position to work at a professional job then there are still ways to protect your sanity and identity. Just analyze the location and types of people who frequent where you potentially might work.

Sorry about the diner experience.

I'd definitely feel more open about coming out where I work now than if I was still working security. I really don't think it'd be that big of a deal where I work now since everyone knows the law and that they can't really do much crap to me if they don't like it. I'd certainly be the talk of the office for quite some time though. I think I'd normally just come completely out relatively soon and just get it all over with (I think it'd be better if I came out completely soon because if it turns out to be too awkward to continue working there I'd still have time to find another position elsewhere), but I want to wait til this divorce thing is over, so I've just been thinking that I'd slowly start appearing more masculine and then just come out when this is over.

Quote from: aleon515 on December 08, 2012, 01:17:44 AM
It might be ideal to be out, but I feel it would needlessly complicate my life when I only have one more year to go til I retire.
It is more my own social dysphoria-- being addressed as female all the time. I hate this, and some days it bothers me a lot more than others.

It seems like going another year would be better. Are you moving once you retire? Or do you already live away from your school?

I pretty much outed myself at my old school just though the sheer amount that I know about sex hormones and trans stuff.  No one explicitly asked whether or not I was trans, but I got the impression that they thought I would transition later in life.  One person would always tell me when there had been a programme about trans people on TV.

Quote from: Simon on December 08, 2012, 01:58:49 AM
Truthfully Jay, in the situation you're in I would lay low for the final year, get my retirement benefits, and then go full steam ahead.

Oh yeah, that is just one instance that I described. I've had my fair share of crap thrown my way. It has done two things, it has made me extremely thick skinned but on the flip side I am also jaded and close people out. I have a ten foot wall built up. I don't think it's uncommon for people in our situations to be distant to others though.

Yeah, I haven't done anything. I am dressing male, but no one cares. I am calling myself an androgynous name and having others use this. The male name is for other situations. I am going to the endo in March. It's really ok because I can retire in May. I am guessing I am not going to change too fast due to my age.

Sorry about all the crap, man.


--Jay

Quote from: aleon515 on December 08, 2012, 06:07:35 PM
I am guessing I am not going to change too fast due to my age.

I wouldn't be too sure of that--my changes came pretty quickly, and there's no particular reason that age would interfere. But if you're on a "full dose" of T for two months, well, most guys who weren't passing before T aren't passing in two months. The voice is usually the main thing to worry about. Most guys' voices don't go down THAT dramatically in two months, but a few do.

Well actually Arch have heard other things about the age thing. I have actually heard that you have less estrogen so consequently you change faster. But still, I am going to be doing t-gel and low dose for a few months. If my voice goes down, I've heard most people attribute it to allergies anyway. It will be handy being allergy season, by the time I get any.
Allergy season, something to look forward to. 

Also I signed Jay not Jay Jay or something. Yes I go by JJ at work (and actually most places). But I am guessing it might not have been that big a deal. And even if she guessed something she would be discrete anyway. She is a pretty cool person, who I will probably tell anyway. It is very nice to have a few people at work that I am out to.
It's an interesting slip though. Jay does not exactly come tripping off my tongue, and I am still getting used to it. It sounds right though.


--Jay

Yes, but if you're on a low dose, then that's not an age factor, it's a dosage issue.

I figure that one reason my changes came fairly quickly was that I had already been through early menopause. (Definitely paid my dues there, ugh.)

Hi Jay,  I am also a retired teacher.   Mostly I taught elementary school and middle school except for my last four years in which I substituted for just about every grade imaginable.  In my experience in the small rural communities and urban neighbor where I taught it would have been impossible to come out as a transgender female.   Most of the other teachers I taught with were female.   I did everything I could not to be "the male" in almost every situation that I could.    Personally being "the male" was never me.

However in almost all of the communities I felt that I could not stray very much from what a man should look like, and how one should act.    The same was true for woman.   If anyone in the communities where I taught had strong feelings that your absences was more desirable than your presence then it was time to move along down the road.

Yes, there were always some teachers who seemed to have divine protection and could stray from the norm and still keep their jobs, I was never one of them.    About six years was the longest time I ever worked in anyone community.

However presently on Facebook, I have befriended several of my past students, some of which were friends of my adult children.   I have outed myself as a transgender female and have outed myself in pictures and the reaction has been pretty much muted with no wild reactions. 

I have gone to my children's schools pretty much dressed as you see in my picture even wearing more makeup and found lots of polite silence but no openly negative reactions from their teachers or other parents or children.    Most of my opinions are not accepted with any real validity, but then again they rarely have been, even though they are based upon years of experience and I have a Masters Degree in elementary education though I don't dress or act like it.    Which may mean that I have always been viewed as being more female than male.   

I am not really sure if you should out yourself at work or not.   No one may say anything or you might run into that one outspoken parent the administration feels that they must bow down to and you might find yourself in deep do do.    My experiences in teaching have lead me to believe that the teacher's world is more of a soap opera than most people would admit and that the difference between between a good teacher and a bad teacher is in the wild imagination of the administrator. 

  Really bad teachers don't last long because of all of the stresses of the profession.    But teaching can transform your personality and this transformation can be sorted into the good, the bad, and the ugly.

  Administrator's can also hire and keep a lot of the Ken's and the Barbi's who can turn out to be some real perverts and duds because they are lost in their own egos and in feeding their own personal desires caring more about maintaining their self image then they do about the children they teach.

Take care, it might be best to go through with retirement.    Then go through transition and then see if you are one of the lucky ones who can get hired as who you really are and then inspire your students to be who they really are.   

As for me I have found myself in the dust bins of life.   And the best I can do is reflect back at my struggles and hopefully shed a little insight into what might or might not be relevant to whomever finds it so.    And so I ponder on while a dim light still shines in the attic of my mind.