Her leg is swelling from blood clots again and she desperately needs the money so my thoughts go out to her. In her words :I'm working along this job and have an interesting story; not the nature of the work, but the nature of the people on the job.
My job is to maintain large hanging flower baskets in some of the business districts around town - mostly watering - in the early morning hours. Last week, I was involved in the installation of the new summer baskets.
The foreman is a Latino, which means nothing to me except that he obviously is engrossed enough in his culture that I am an abomination to him. Still, he's at least "tolerant" of my existence there; tolerant to a point. It's his pronoun usage when talking about and to me that is the problem. It's always "he,his,or Amigo not Amiga."
I made one subtle remark about it to him, but he either refuses to give me the proper respect or he didn't get the message. So, after a week of this, I brought the subject up with the owner. He was not comprehending what I was telling him at all, and couldn't understand why his foreman would be using male pronouns when he didn't do so with, or to, other women. Ha! I had to tell my boss that I was a transgender woman, because for all the time he's known me he has thought that I was a cis woman!!! (with a rather low voice, he said)
The whole thing is not worth a battle to me, as this is just a temporary seasonal job I've taken, while this guy has been working there for fifteen years. I believe that I would even have legal grounds for making a stink about this, but I'm more interested in searching out avenues of positive energy. I know that there are those who think I'm giving in here, but I prefer to see the positivity in the fact the owner is happy to have me be a face for his business, working and dealing with the people in the districts he serves. Besides, who wouldn't be pleased to be able to work independently without a foreman looking over her back all the time. Also, if he mis-genders me to someone, he's only going to be confusing them. I win all the way around!
Feel free to use any or all of this. I just think it's an amusing twist of sorts on the "transgenders in the workplace" issues that are usually reported."
First of all Connie, I wish you good health! And second of all what an inspiring story. I had a difficult time lifting it from yahoo over to here for some reason, hope everyone got the meaning!
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