I paid a visit to my department chair's office and told him of my plans to transition -- the world didn't collapse; instead, he was very supportive and said things like "I can't imagine anyone will have any trouble with this, but if they do, screw 'em." He may be a bit optimistic, but he sets the tone for this department, and he was inquisitive without being nosy, asking about my schedule, what it's like, whether there were any other transitioning TS's on our campus, and that sort of thing.
This is the first non-medical, non-psych, non-family I've spoken with this about, and it took a lot of steeling myself before I could walk down the hall, down the steps, and into the main office. I was completely aware of the flight-or-fight body responses, the heart beating, adrenaline pumping, breaths coming faster and shallower -- so I deliberately did some deep breathing and some moving around to try to defeat these instinctive reactions.
During our hour-long chat, I was hyper-aware of my being there, with one little voice popping up from time to time to say "what on earth are you doing sitting here? Get out and run!" and the other one saying "this is so normal and natural -- keep disclosing things to him."
By the time we were finished, he said the pace of disclosure and transition to the higher ups (i.e. the college, provost, HR, and other offices) would be entirely up to me and he'd be with me every step of the way. As for pragmatic things, he said our university has no experience save what we just formulated this year for an undergraduate undergoing transition, and that policy is that however you're presenting, then that's the bathroom you use. I asked if that might extend from a student policy to a faculty one, and he said he didn't see any reason it shouldn't.
I gave him
True Selves and
She's Not There for light Christmas Vacation reading, pointing out that Jennifer Boylan has lived, and has written about, my life, more or less (same age, same number of kids, same profession, etc), so if you understand where she's coming from, then you more or less get where I'm coming from. Interesting, he said. Maybe we'll see if we can invite her to a campus speaker's series in 2008 and put this book on our department's monthly reading list.
He also noted that this transition will do wonders for our diversity numbers.
When I finally left, I realized I was completely drained, feeling neither elated nor fearful, but kind of numb. Maybe it's going to sink in later that I've opened up a whole new line of transition, that of the bureaucracy and the workplace, and that it'll have its own momentum as I try to align everything for a June 1 RLE.
Whew....
