02 – Hope Seems More Than Reasonable
by Entropic Variable [She, Her, Hers]
I'm an artist and writer who only does personal and freelance projects that interest me – many of which have been and are pro bono – so my creative work unfortunately doesn't entirely support my raging addictions to living indoors and eating regularly. As a result, I've had a number of different "daytime gigs" to pay the bills over the years, and my most recent was a temporary position that ended in December, at which point I became a free agent in the realm of regular economy gathering exercises once more.
A couple of weeks into my job search I came across a listing for a position with a politically progressive national non-profit organization. The work role as defined was virtually identical to my previous temporary position, which I loved and thoroughly enjoyed. And as a life long progressive who fully supports the mission and goals of this particular organization, the thought of working in support of them was enormously appealing to me.
I applied immediately, got a phone interview within a few days, a face-to-face interview one week after that, and an hour and a half after my face-to-face interview I got a call with a verbal job offer, which I of course gladly accepted. Two days later, I received emails with an attached official offer letter, benefit manual, policy manual, and links to enter information to complete my pre-hire background check, HR on-boarding information, and to electronically acknowledge my understanding and acceptance of all workplace policies.
The policy manual was close to 100 pages due to the sensitive and confidential nature of the work, and over the next few days I faithfully did my due diligence and read it thoroughly. After plowing through page after page of boilerplate legalese full of lengthy hyper specific qualitative phrases designed to cover every possible contingency of exposure or conflict, I was delighted to discover that there was an entire section specifically devoted to stringent non-discrimination and non-harassment protections for transgendered employees. The policies outlined seemed to provide everything that anyone pre, in progress, or post transition could possibly want from an employer. I wasn't even consciously considering this when I applied for the position (although perhaps I was on a subconscious level), given that my first priority was simply to find a new regular income. But there it was in wonderfully supportive explicit detail.
I then reviewed the information on the employer subsidized health coverage and did searches for providers and benefits available for transsexual patients and discovered that at the very least, HRT and SRS are covered with the appropriate protocols and referrals. What was interesting and frustrating was that for the health insurance I'll have with my new employer, it's easy to use their web utility to search for providers, services, and medications for conditions like "hypertension" or "diabetes," but "gender" and "sex" return 0 results. I had to do some significant digging, but was able to find the confirmations I was looking for if I searched elsewhere online for their transsexual patient services policy statement and entered exact names of gender issues specialists in network provider searches.
The wonderful thing though is that even if I was cisgendered, I'd still be be very excited to start this new position. It'll be so much more than just another "daytime gig" for me. Given the nature of the work and the services it provides, every day will be life well lived, and unless something unexpected happens, I can easily envision myself growing with the organization and gladly making work for it a very meaningful career.
So one week ago today, it suddenly struck me that I was about to have access to both the work culture and health insurance resources to finally, finally, finally begin the process of transition.
I was fully ready and absolutely committed to beginning my transition in the early spring of 1993 when I was 29 years old, and I've never once been in denial about who I was or am since the evening discussed in my previous installment when I was 25. Several times over the last 30+ years I thought that I might be moving into the place that I have every reason to believe I'm coming to now. For me, it's never been a question of absolute acceptance or motivation. The inability to begin my transition has always been due to practical financial reality as the result of a combination of pre-ACA health insurance issues, plain old bad luck, living in a largely aesthetically illiterate culture that doesn't reasonably compensate creative skills outside of advertising (which my personal sense of ethics prohibits me from participating in), as well as the Great Recession and aftermath.
Yesterday I received my copy of my clean background report, which was the last pre-hire administrative task that needed to be completed before my accepted job offer would be formalized, and today I received an email confirmation of this from my new work group leader. My training starts on Monday, my new health benefits will start on April 1st (with any luck at all the particular date is in no way significant), and I will have completed my probationary training and initial performance evaluation at the beginning of May. If my evaluation is at least satisfactory (although my goal is of course something much higher), I intend to come out to my supervisors and HR verbally and in writing prior to presenting myself in my authentic gender at work for the first time, and to request the appropriate name and identity updates to my record and security credentials, which I expect will be very straightforward per the employee policy manual.
Last Thursday, I spoke with a Patient Services Coordinator for an established and very well known clinic that specializes in evaluating and treating transsexuals, and was added to their intake waiting list. According to what she told me, it sounds like I should be able to get in to begin my intake evaluation in late April to early June.
My goal at this point is to be completely out and living full time as my authentic female self beginning on my 55th birthday in mid-June. Over the next 5 1/2 months I plan to spend all of my free time doing research on the practical aspects of personal trans aesthetics, acquiring body forms, makeup, clothing, etc., making changes to my diet and exercise, and working on vocal training.
In case it wasn't obvious from my previous installment, I tend to be rather thorough, detail-oriented, and I'm also a recovering perfectionist. All of which can of course be both good and bad. The years have taught me to know when to tell myself "this is as good as it can be for now, and that's OK" and to let things go. But I'll also never stop believing that that things can always be improved, although I've also learned to temper this with patience. Present day me will at least be able to find this balance much better than 29 year old me would have, and this is one of the positive trade-offs for beginning this part of my journey now.
Could something go horribly wrong here? Of course it could. Things can always go horribly wrong at any time. But despite all of the setbacks I've lived through over the years, I'm still a perennial optimist, because I've always believed very, very strongly that the alternative is a pointless dead end. I've had family members demonstrate this through their negative example repeatedly, and I've always been determined to never fall into any of the traps that they have.
In terms of my new job, I'm completely confident in my personal skill set and experience, couldn't possibly be more motivated to give everything I've got to my training, believe in and completely support the work I'll be doing, and know that I love doing the type of work I'll be doing based on recent experience. Additionally, my application and interviews were very enthusiastically embraced, I've had great interactions with the leaders I've interviewed and connected with so far, and the organization itself has a long and outstanding reputation for ethics, fairness, and compassion. So hope seems more than reasonable to me under the circumstances, and transitioning in this work culture and position feels intuitively as safe and supportive as it could possibly be.
Over the last seven days, I've felt constantly overwhelmed in the best possible way. Even though I've had time off while I'm waiting for my new job to start I've gotten up early every morning because I've been so excited to start each day and to learn something new. I've cried so many tears of joy watching dozens of MTF transition slide shows and vlogs, as well as dozens of makeup and vocal training tutorials. I've shopped online for everything from body forms to perfume atomizer bottles to health care practitioners, and of course throughout all of my searches I kept repeatedly getting results for Susan's Place forum pages, which is what brought me here and why you're reading this.
To be continued.
