I wanted to know a bit about people's experiences with finding jobs, and working. Specifically, coming out to an employer (or potential employer). What was the reaction like?

I'm asking mostly about situations where you're either looking for a job, or had a job and worked as female or had some mismatched documents (either by name or gender). When did you speak up? How were things before for yourself internally, and interacting with co-workers?

2,000 post

Happy 2000

This will vary a lot between countries and in the USA from State to state, from what I read here. In Australia it is illegal to discriminate for essentially anything for a job. There may be physical conditions of a job that will allow an employer to not employ a particular person. I would never be employed by a company that needed me to lift heavy stuff. I couldn't.

Most people when trying to employ people want to know what you can offer them in the job. Concentrate on telling the employer what you can offer them instead of worrying the small stuff. If you are the best for the job they won't care about anything else.

Sadly in my experiences getting/maintaining a job while also keeping an eye out for my.mental health haven't been to great. I've faced discrimination, disrespect, etc. The being out, and being respected as my gender is currently #1 importance in my book right now so it's not such a little thing.

If it's possible to wait, then do.

I waited to work until I was passing pretty well because that's exactly what I didn't want to have to go through.
My work has only seen one mismatched document, my RSA  Certificate.(Responsible Service of Alcohol) I just wrote a Stat Dec saying that it was mine and I haven't had any questions.

I'm in the process of coming out long distance for my summer job (I'm not and never will be out at this job, but I've got less than three months left here).  It's been interesting so far.  I'm not expecting them to be surprised considering last summer I wore male clothes and had a shaved head, but you never know.  I haven't actually come out to them yet, but I sent an e-mail to the big boss yesterday about something unrelated and signed it Devin (Femalename) Lastname.  I asked the assistant managers (who are friends with me on Facebook where my name is Devin) if I could have Devin on my name tag and they sounded a little taken aback and said not until it gets legally changed.  I'm trying to come out slowly hoping it has more time to process and is less of a shock, but we'll see.  I'm going to have to come out and say it eventually...  I don't think they'll fire me or treat me badly, but I can see it being awkward, especially since I'm a member of the management and I'm hoping they don't think this will get in the way of my leadership.  I worked hard to get onto that management team and I don't want something as insignificant as changing genders to mess it up.

Xander, for myself I've been on hormones for sometime between a year and a year and a half and don't know how long it would take to be seen as male maybe 50% of the time or more. It's been a big "just one more month and people will get it" over and over type of game. I'm also going to be 25 (cringe!) so my family has been getting on my case about settling down into a career.

Devin87, doesn't it seem odd how something that seems like it should be a tiny afterthought for everybody else is something that gets blown up? To me it seems like trans people getting recognized as the gender we are is important to us, but everybody wants to stick their nose into our business.