Working While Trans
Doing The Work
Hello, dear community,
And a special "hello" to us trans folks among the crowd. I see you in your fullness today and every day. I'm grateful you're here. Visibility is a step but what we need is liberation, protection, and care. This piece contains explicit discussions of transphobia in the workplace. Take care of yourself and know I'm not asking you to read this if you've lived it. I hope you find some time to rest today.
You may have figured out this is a Trans Day of Visibility (or TDOV) post by now. When I started drafting something about being trans in the workplace, I wasn't sure which of my work experiences to focus on. The thing is, I've been trans on the job almost as long as I've had a job. I have just enough experience working in a mailroom as a teen before coming out to know it's different. To know that there are things I have to think about day in and day out that my cisgender coworkers do not.
Working in that same mailroom I experienced my first dose of transphobia on the job. I came out under one boss who left soon after. When my new supervisor came on I didn't mention I was trans right away mainly because it doesn't come up when you're sorting letters. Until one day it did. As soon as she learned I was trans she started searching for my birth name. She asked me about it, asked my coworkers about it, and most invasively, checked my mail as we sorted it, seeing if she could find a letter addressed to my birth name. I watched a switch flip in her perception of me when she learned I was trans. I was now something to figure out, a veiled, sneaky person hiding my "true self" from her. This sort of invasive push to uncover something not only deeply personal but also deeply irrelevant is something no one should experience.
It didn't stop there. Every workplace I've joined has had trans-specific challenges and sometimes overt discrimination my coworkers haven't had to deal with. When I worked at a theater program for youth, I had to worry about my identity being viewed as political and "imposed" on these children. I underplayed the "they" in my he/they pronouns to avoid accusations of indoctrination. When I worked at my campus bookstore in college, I had a coworker tell another coworker that no matter what pronouns I used, I'd "still be a little girl with cute tatas." What has been true time and time again is that my transness has been viewed as either open for discussion or something to silence. Being loud about who I am is not a privilege I have had in most workplaces. Or at least it hasn't come without consequences.
Even now, working in a job where I hear my pronouns resound through my professional life with ease, there are still considerations so specific to my trans experience that they fly under everyone else's radar. Even mine, sometimes. It wasn't until I talked to a friend after a long day that I realized that making calls on the job felt more exhausting because I hear "ma'am" on the phone at least half the time. Or that I am bound to encounter a needlessly gendered document even in the most well-meaning of situations. My truth is often not considered or acknowledged, and that's taxing. Being trans at work - whether I choose to be visible about it or not - means I am encountering reminders that this world does not exist with me in mind.
I want to take a second to acknowledge my privilege as a white trans-masc individual and the ways that have given me ease and privilege consistently. I can only speak from my lived experience and recognize the additional weight and challenges trans folks of color and trans women face day in and day out.
It is my hope by writing this that those of you who think you don't interact with trans people in your work life still go through the extra effort to see us and the ways we'll be affected by what you say, do, and express. Let us be visible today and every day. Delete that "he or she" from your document and replace it with a "they." I challenge you to see every person who might interact with you and assume transness. Or, at the very least, stop assuming cisness. Use "they" even when you think you know someone's gender until they've told you otherwise. Trans people are going to experience transphobia. That's a fact of our world that's becoming more clear each day in the United States. What you can do is make sure that they aren't also experiencing thoughtlessness. Don't just promise not to actively hurt us; stop overlooking us and our experiences. We're here, and today's ask is simple. See us. Consider us. Make decisions with us in mind.
Happy TDOV,
Tias (he/they)
Waking Giants
Client Support Coordinator