Very good point! I was in a somewhat similar situation: I only spend a few days every year in HQ and rarely meet coworkers since I work home office. But I spend at least one week every month at customers. Lucky for me it was only a limited number and with most I was not worried. Only one I worried about was a strongly religious organization.
One lady at my main customer busted me about 8 month before coming out publicly. She just noticed I was wearing more and more female attire and shoes, along with nail polish. A month before coming to, I called one of their VP's and let him know, he even followed up with their HR department (which funny enough has no jurisdiction over me). On my next visit I told the rest of the group. Many hugs and encouraging words, and they where just happy I did not quit my job. Took them a while but right before the holidays, they had updated all their internal systems and issued a new badge for me. They also invited me into their pride group.
The second large customer I just included in my coming out email. No issues either and I got a new badge on my next visit :-)
The religious group I pretty much handed over to a coworker (before I even started transition) but I have talked to some individuals since and they are all fine with it too.
I had to turn down one project in the middle east, but my manager fully understood when I told him that I would fear about my own safety.
I do have to admit that it is somewhat easy for me, the industry I work in is generally very accepting
I will add one new customer this year, but now that I am all Sarah all the time, I don't expect much problems.
Very cool of your work to actually hire a consultant to help craft the message! Very nice to see an employer really taking care of you and valuing your work...
Quote from: AlyssaJ on July 12, 2017, 09:36:42 AM
Well it isn't about being dishonest, but trying to avoid letting the cat out of the bag in a way that I (and my employer) do not have control of the message. My concern isn't with co-workers. Heck I hardly see them anyway and yeah I would have opportunity to explain like you have above.
My concern is our clients who I meet with pretty regularly. My company is investing a lot of money in a consultant to help them craft the message about my transition to our clients. This is being done both in the interests of the company and well as my own. If a client notices something like breast development before they're aware of my transition, the response is a total unknown. They could respectfully keep quiet about it and just assume I have some medical issue. That would be a fine scenario. However, my concern is the other very possible response which is they keep quiet to my face but it colors their opinion of me and/or my company in some negative way resulting in a loss of business or poor treatment of me personally. While we can't control how a client will react, controlling the initial message helps prevent poor reactions where possible (some people will just be closed-minded jerks no matter what).
So hence my concern. Now of course I could just be blowing all of this out of proportion and loose dress shirts will hide things sufficiently until I start full-time, but I want to be prepared. I really wasn't expecting anyone to notice yet so when my wife asked, it took me back a bit.