Transgender in the Work Place

Transgender In The Workplace: An Idea Whose Time Is Now

It’s a remarkable moment to be openly transgender and working for a living.  Extraordinary progress has occurred in this timely area of business interest over the last dozen years or so.  For example, in the year 2000 there were only three Fortune 500 companies with anti-discrimination protection for transgender employees.  Today, nearly half of the Fortune 500 organizations have adopted policies that protect transgender employees from discrimination.

Despite various political efforts to pass a transgender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), there is still no federal statute that protects transgender workers.  However, in an amazing turn of events, in April of 2012, the federal government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects transgender workers from on-the-job discrimination. The ruling formally took effect on May 23, 2012, and the nation's employers have now officially been put on notice that transgender discrimination won't be tolerated in the workplace.

Here's your link for more!

Where's That Soapbox?

As you probably have determined, I have a soap box with me at all times. I jump up on it to preach or whine.
Or maybe a big ax to grind would be a great description too! It's tough to make these great fashion accessories and I feel both just make me a victim. (Which I hate.)
Actually, life is good.  Summer in my part of the world has allowed me to pursue fashion styles I was never able to try.
(Work prevented me from showing up with suddenly hairless arms.)
I've even been able to slowly coerce a little color out of my very fair skin.
Interestingly, I have been able to "jender jump" without apprehension or fear to help family or friends. I can't or don't want to jump much. If I wanted to be a guy, I certainly would have found something less stressful to do with my life than crossing gender boundaries. On the other hand, what's left of any male strength I have left has helped family and friends.
Now that I have a stable concrete transition timetable saying goodby to my old life isn't so difficult all of the sudden.
Obviously changes are rolling along with my body which aren't so earth shattering anymore but still very noticeable. All of the sudden it seems my whole body needs soaked in cocoa butter to stay soft and not dry.  Also, I was never very heat resistant but now it's worse. I have not acquired the feminine desire to lay out and soak up the sun-guess I'm a vampire.
I'm asked by some what has been the biggest change so far? For me, the hot flashes are far and away stand out. Never have I experienced anything like them.
Sure I get more emotional and sure my breasts are much more sensitive but in lesser doses I still experienced them as a guy. If you have ever heard of a human suddenly internally combusting- it started with a hot flash I'm sure.
So it is time to soak in a huge dose of reality. Put the ax down, burn the soap box ( with a hot flash) and acquire a big piece of fine cheese to go with my whine!

Peers As Gender Police

If she will allow me to refer to her as sort of our resident therapist, Sherri Lynne has a new post on her blog. The article references our peers as gender police. Here's an excerpt:

"Interestingly, the most negative people about the realities of our lives both as individuals and in varying collectives include the extreme Right and the Extreme Left.

For one group, our very existence on the earth is anathema. For the other group, our very right to a unified gender identity is sacrilege. I find both extremes both nullifying simultaneously."

 

You can read the entire article here!

The one addition I would love to see is Sherry address is the extreme rift in the transgender or transsexual community about who we are. (She did say a little about it but anything in depth from her is great!)
In fact I just had an old friend tell me he thought there was some sort of a "sisterhood" in our community and I told him I'm not so sure.
Allow me to bring up the number of "sisters" who reject me quickly because I'm not sexually promiscuous or the ones who have said I'm just another old guy starting hormones or the ones who are sure I can't pee in the woman's room because I haven't forked out the thousands of dollars for the privilege.
Just where are the gender police?
Everywhere. It's life.

Privilege versus Stereotypes.

I would like to thank all of you for your comments on my previous post  "Male Privilege"
First of all I know the whole subject is very current and active in our community but I was still sort of surprised (and then not) of the reactions to mine.
Many of you know sometimes I go past cynicism right to sarcasm.  For a fact, you have to be a better writer than I to play in that sandbox effectively. So perhaps I didn't communicate my sarcasm effectively enough in this post.
Some of you want to take a few of my comments way too seriously. By the way, my second year in the eighth grade taught me what sociology is and my second degree in college taught me what it isn't.
What it isn't and what this blog isn't about is some sort of intellectual look at a trans existence.
Basically (as in the case with many of you) this blog is just an exercise in my reality. Cyrsti's Condo is a diary. Maybe it's a manifestation of the diary my male privilege discouraged?
I do my best to deal in two realities. I try my best to leave the endless intellectual bantering to others. More power to them- in 10,000 words or more. Go ahead and invent a new way to beat the same dead horse.
The other is to stay away from the meanest most virulent anti transsexual or transgender people I have ever encountered. "Rad Fem Trans Nazi's". I can't wait for the John Waters film!
Enough of that,  here is my simple minded  bottom line privilege theory:
Each person's privileges are as different as humans are.. There it is.
Look, I know it's an intensely complex and personal subject for all of us so I do like to read other concise ideas on the subject such as  "Sherri Lynn's" link.
Then there are the off setting female privileges. Read some of Angel's posts to have an idea.
For the rest of you-lighten up for God's sake!

So Many Faces So Little Time

I enjoyed a wonderful fun day yesterday. Attended a local very well attended artisan street fair with a gf..
My ultimate goal in this post would be to toss out the fact I'm transgender all together.You all know that, right? Unfortunately as they say in the old country "That ain't happenin".
Actually yesterday, most of the public did just that. They did better it than I did. Most didn't notice or care if I was transgender, green or purple or both.
Let me backtrack into several larger forces at work here.
For simplicity, lets mold identity and presenting into one. Then maybe public perception and stealth into another.
(You know how much 6,000 word thesis posts bore me.)
Through all the twists and turns of my life, 62 years have taught me I identify as transgender-not transsexual. For better or for worse a certain percentage of the public will discover that. Fortunately for me, the public is coming to a little better understanding of what a transgender person is all about.
Ironically, I'm learning with them. I have a delightful friend who I used to identify as a ftm transsexual but now I think he is more of a transgender male. He is about half my age and enjoys being mistaken for a male but is not sure of starting hormones.
So, if I present transgender woman to the portion of the public who notices then it's up to me and on intelligent publicity to educate. No slam to either group but I'm more (not better) than a guy in a dress or less than a guy with new genitalia.
Finally, let me flip two words:   present and public perception.
Doing this allows everything to become nice and orderly in my world until I get to stealth.
I have never like the term and basically had no respect for the individuals in the trans culture who basically assumed the roll of their chosen gender and disappeared into society.
My problem is yesterday, for the most part I was stealth to the great majority of the general public.

Of course I have concocted a rationalization for not resenting myself.
My friends have so totally embraced me as a transgender woman. It's their fault! Just kidding.
What has happened is I have grown past a word into a person, I'm just me. For better or worse I am some sort of a gender blend.
How's that working for me? Pretty well. Just why did it take 62 years to get here?

A Huge Dose of Male Privilege

What would the "Rad Fem's" say? Or even the Rad Trans Fem's?
I was privileged this week to work on a long put off plumbing project in my old house!
What was I thinking?
I learned how much I have missed the very male part of my life which involved crawling around on the floor and in walls doing plumbing!
About 4 pm today, I was thinking just how privileged I was to have been born male.
Actually (another tip from a close friend) I am privileged. She has pointed out on more than one occasion I should appreciate experience not from a gender viewpoint but from a life viewpoint.
Sure, a plumbing project may not be my ideal but it had to get done and as she said I was lucky I knew how to do it.
So-would I be subjected to a double standard by the "Rad Peeps"?
After all, if a genetic female works on plumbing she is pushing the bounds of the female experience. If I'm doing it, it's my male privilege.
I feel almost as good about exercising my privilege as the first flow of water coming out of the faucets!

Back in It-I think!

In the last week or so I have had a real tough time getting my computer to work it's magic here in "Cyrsti's Condo".
Not being "techno girl" and knowing just enough computer knowledge to be dangerous, I think I may have gotten some of the "bugs" out of here and should be able to do more posting.
As far as the real world goes (or what I perceive it to be), the hormones seem to be stepping up the game a little. "The girls" have gone through another phase of soreness and hardness. My hips and rear are adding some flesh and definitely hot flashes aren't my best summertime girl friends.
The most interesting change to me so far is how my body skin has started to dry out so to speak.
I've used more body lotion/moisturizer in the last month than in my whole life.
Other than that, my life is pretty well passing for normal. Pretty neat comparison, right?
So, the two next summer milestones are the doctors appointments. As of yet, I have not heard back on my VA appeal and some actual work on my own hair later this summer.
Little did I know as little as eight months ago how routine this all has become.
Much of the progress I attribute to several close friends who have unwaveringly accepted my transgender status.
Most read this blog and I can't ever begin to say how much it means!

It is What it Is

Then again it may be to you but not to the person next to you. Sure, we are all humans and all different. No real problem with that until someone decides to not respect your difference
For transgender or transsexual folk-this is particularly true. We live it.
Jillian Page writes a very interesting blog for the "Montreal Gazette" .
Her latest post "My Identity, My Right" (in a round about way) addresses the "It is what it is" dynamic.
Jillian begins with a mention of recent progress made in Argentina — which allows people to change name and sex based simply on how they feel, without any forms of approval from anyone else.
Here's the good part:
 " I wish to remind all of my trans readers and their supporters that you don’t owe the general public any explanations or apologies for your transgenderism or transsexualism. Religious fundamentalists, RadFems et al are entitled to their opinions about trans stuff — to a point — but those opinions are irrelevant: You owe them nothing.There’s no need to try to convert them to your way of thinking, or to tell them to mind their own business. Just hit the “ignore” key, literally or figuratively, when their negativity gets you down.
Of course, when it comes to being oppressed by people who oppose transgenderism, that’s another matter. Then it’s time to take a stand. But trans people already know that . . . Smiles . . . You are doing very well, sisters and brothers. You are making progress by leaps and bounds.

So it is what it is- if you believe!
Thanks Jillian.

Trans World Bloggin

Is it good or bad when a large portion of the transgender - transsexual news yesterday was the announcement that Janet Jackson was going to produce some sort of documentary on the "plight" of trans women and men around the world.
While I have deep suspicions of her true motives (outside of money), I guess if it is well done the old saying could be true. Any publicity is good publicity. What makes me uneasy is the unspoken connection between this project and her brother Micheal. At the least, his sexuality and gender was very ambiguous. I'm just afraid of the trans culture being tossed into the "fond of young kids" culture.
Bottom line is, Janet didn't call me about this!
On the positive side, I have discovered a great little blog by "Michelleliana" called "Transgender Talk"
Her latest post on the path to coming out at work is very informative and involves the curse of the bathroom! (Really?)
Whoever thought, peeing would reach such a point of substance?
Or not as I found out Saturday during my first visit as a woman to a festival "Port-A-John". A chance to experience unisex at it's best and worst.
The good news?  It was early in the day and the "John" was "fresh" and no potential sensitivities were disturbed in a mostly non reactive public. Everyone's equal in that line! .
More good news? I wont go into "Port a John" experiences that are pretty negative from the viewpoint of both genders but REALLY negative from a female one.
I have a female friend who takes great pleasure in saying "welcome in sister"! Ha-Ha.