3 posts tagged “coming out at work”

First of all, if you work with me and you're reading this for the first time - hello!

I have been talking with HR about the best way to plan my coming out both in terms of how it affects myself and my coworkers - in retrospect, my plan of "wing it and hope it sorts itself out" probably wasn't the best.  The conversations have been 100% positive - the company is pretty forward-thinking in regards to diversity, tolerance, and open-mindedness, and they want my transition to be in as healthy an environment as possible. 

I had originally planned to tell a few people that I trust, tell them to tell a few people they trust, and hope that eventually word would get out to everyone.  The idea is that they wouldn't be surprised when, a few months down the road, I send an email to the company explaining that I plan to change my gender.  The problem, as HR correctly explained, is that the rumor mill is a vicious beast, and that I can't trust people to get the right information if I'm not giving it to them myself.  They suggested first sitting down with my managers + HR to explain to them what is going on and discuss how it might affect the department, and then later joining a meeting with all of the Senior Directors so that they can try to answer questions their teams might have down the road.

That first meeting is scheduled for Monday.  It's on my Outlook calender as [Confidential] and is going to my direct supervisor, my team manager, the IT director, and the senior director of HR.  I have to wonder if my managers are looking at that meeting and wondering if I'm planning on quitting or something (which, if the stuff above isn't enough of an indication, I'm not).  And the senior leadership meeting, that's on Wednesday.  My plan is to write up some sort of letter that I can present my job with to explain things as best I can, and to field whatever questions people may have.

Suffice to say, I'm petrified.  I'm definitely ready to do this, but the idea of coming out to a room full of people - nevermind the fact that they're all executives that I work for - is a bit nerve-wracking.  I'm going to take some time tonight and Sunday night (I'm going back to CT Saturday/Sunday) to get my stuff together so I can do this right.  If the meeting goes well, I will then start to look into how and when to essentially go public to the rest of the company.  I have the feeling it's going to be sooner rather than later.

In other news, I pulled two more friends who I consider close at work and told them.  They were both as great about it as I knew they would be!  I can definitely think of a couple other people that I trust who I would like to tell before I really come out to everyone.  It really is the people that I work with, more than anything else, that keep me coming back to work smiling day in and day out.  I have been aware of the intesification of my emotions since starting hormones, but mainly as they regard to negative emotions (frustration, sadness, anger).  I think that Wednesday after coming out has been a rush the other way - I've been in great spirits, and I think it's because I'm feeling less and less impending fear of the road ahead. 

I'm just hoping that it stays this way forever.  Or, failing that, at least until around/about this time next month so that I can feel like a normal woman :)

Hey guys!

This isn't the easiest letter I've ever written.  The time has come for me to share a secret that I've been keeping hidden from everyone for my entire span working here.  I have the feeling that is going to surpise most people at first, but will make sense as you think about it more.  So sit back, relax, and let me get into some finer details of my personal life!

I am a male-to-female (MtF) transgendered person.  If you are unfamiliar with the term, it means that despite all wishes and natural inclinations that I am female, I have the body of a male.  This is something that I've known about for most of my life, but it wasn't until March of this year that I actually sought out therapy for it.  It is admittedly a really tough concept to explain to those not going through it, but I hate it every time I'm reminded of my gender.  I hate being expected to be macho, to take initiative persuing a relationship, to love sports and cars and action movies and other dumb stereotypical male stuff...none of that feels natural to me at all.  And every time I'm called a wimp, or a girl, or called out on not letting women off the elevator or holding doors for them or having a girl's haircut or random stuff like that - that's just me getting more and more comfortable with not trying to be something that I'm not.  Honestly, I don't know what you guys are thinking reading this; I feel it could be anything from "holy shit!" to "i knew you were kinda weird, that explains it!" to "well, obviously".

So where do I go from here?  Well, to be honest, work is pretty much the last group in my life to know about this.  I've come out to my friends outside of work and my family.  I've had some laser hair removal done on my face.  I've been going to a gender therapist in Framingman for months now.  While I've been crossdressing for years, I've started making a strict effort to be able to go out in public and not be read, and I'm getting both better and more confident at it.  I go to a support group at MIT every other week for transgendered college students and twenty-somethings.  And come January, I will start taking female hormones to begin the process of changing my gender, with the eventual goal of sexual reassignment surgery and becoming "Michelle".

I am more than willing to answer any questions that anyone may have on this matter.  When I'm not trying to hide it, I actually really enjoy trying to help people understand what being transgendered is like.  I can accept being referred to as with male pronouns/the name [male] until the hormones take visible effect, and I am hoping that I will have your support so that, when I go female full time, I can be around a group of people that can accept me for who I am.  If you're reading this, it's because I consider you a friend, and because I think I can trust you to stay that way.  I'm not going out and shouting this to the world, but neither do I feel the need to keep it a secret, so I don't mind if you show this letter to people that you feel should know.  In other words - I am hoping to slowly build a support group, and I'm asking you to help :)

I'm curious to know what people think.  I have to imagine that there will eventually be people that might have a problem with this announcement, so all I ask is that you keep it civil and give me a chance to help you understand me if you don't feel like you can right now.  I consider myself a good judge of character, and I trust that most people in this group will be more than cool.

Damn.  That's a weight of my chest.  (and yes, I could have used a pun about "putting weight on my chest", but I couldn't think of a good segue).

~[male]
(soon to be Michelle)

 Oh wow.  Let's see here:

1.  I've been writing a lot more.  I consider AIM to be a form of writing that just happens to be interactive and directed at another person :)  Between AIM, my journal, emails, and forums, I'm letting my mind flow free, and really liking it.  Granted it's only online, where passing as female is guaranteed, but I've found that I have a lot more to say when I feel I'm being received as a female.  That freedom, combined with my newly living alone, has made me feel a lot more confident with myself.  And when my spirits are high, apparently my luck follows!

2.  I was delivered good news at work yesterday.  I'm not going into much more detail, because I don't want this journal to be a liability if someone from my life as [male] finds this.  Instead, I'm going to talk about work in general.  I'm in a really good place right now - I have a few close friends, a lot of good acquaintances, and I enjoy what I do.  I am not coming out yet - I do not want to explain to people that I prefer to be seen as female, only to continue coming into work presenting as a man.  Presenting female full-time before I start hormones is out of the question, so right now I'm just being patient.

There is one person at work who knows, but she seems to feel very awkward about bringing it up as a topic of conversation.  More likely than not, she thinks it will make me feel awkward.  There is another friend who I am incredibly close to, and it's making me feel worse and worse as time passes and I don't tell him.  I feel like he has formed a close bond with [male], and while I know he would not reject me, I feel like it might make us not as close as we have been.  Honestly, as I write this, that doesn't really make any sense - I am planning on telling him sooner than later, as soon as I stop rationalizing.

Anyways, good news at work.  I'm really happy with it.  Back to the other reasons this has been a good week!

3.  On Monday afternoon, I received a phone call from the Concord police department, telling me that a warrant had been put out for my arrest, and that he recommended that I go down to pay off an 800$ debt from years back.  He told me that they were perfectly fine with setting up a payment plan, which seemed reasonable to me.  I went to the courthouse today, where they put me in front of a judge.  I explained - and this is reasonably honest - that I really wanted to pay and settle it, but I have a some mental issues that included frivolous spending that I was working on, and felt I would do better if I was billed monthly for it.  The judge asked me if I was seeing help, and I explained that I had a therapist.  He then told me that he was remitting (and I was so shocked, I asked him to verify the meaning of the word 'remit') the fine, and to spend that money getting the help I needed.

Holy crap.  I have one more $150 violation to pay for that I know of, and then I'm out of debt.  I am really bad with debt - a lot of my defense mechanisms involve not thinking about stressful things, and so I tend to force myself not to worry about things like that until they spiral out of control.  I'm really grateful that the judge was able to help me with that, because it had been a HUGE stressor for me (the few times that I would remember that I owed nearly $1000 that I simply wasn't going to be able to pay), which was growing worse because I kept putting it off.

4.  After the courthouse today, I had a consultation for hair removal.  The technician, who has been in the field for 30+ years and was highly recommended by my therapist, said that I would be a good candidate for laser hair removal.  This is good, because while electrolysis is more guaranteed to be permanent, it costs more, hurts more, and takes longer than laser.  She took me in and went over the finer details of the process, including cost, number of sessions, the process, the risks, and how it actually worked.  She gave me some test zaps, and I think she said it best in that it feels like "a rubber band snapping you and a spray of water at the same time".  It hurt, but I'm more than willing to put up with it for a little while for something that important.  My first proper appointment is October 1st.

5.  I have plans to go shopping on Sunday, with a friend of mine (hi Lisa!) that I had recently gotten back in contact with.  This is awesome, because (a) she's willing to accept me as female, even in person, (b) I think I will have a lot more confidence out in public if I'm with a friend, and (c) I think she can give me a lot of input in regards to how to pass better.  The place that we plan to go has a lot of cool, cheap clothes, and is really relaxed, so I think I will be able to actually go out female without being stressed.

6.  I'm getting a lot better at the whole lifestyle change thing.  I have been substituting online gaming (Magic Online, for those curious), which was my #1 money-sink/time-waster, with maintaining my apartment, writing and socializing.  I'm sure all of this is tied in with the increased confidence, but I feel a lot happier with what I've been doing lately.  I don't buy anything anymore unless I can really justify it.  I'd say I've cut back from eating out every meal to eating out every third night or so.  When I get time, I plan to tackle the bass guitar and sewing machine, two hobbies I would love to learn but had been putting off.

7.  I got my bloodwork results back from my doctor - everything is normal.  My first endo appointment isn't until January (possibly December, based on a lead from my therapist), so I'm going to have to wait for awhile before I can put that to use, but it's still really good news.

8.  The Red Sox are in the postseason!  It's weird - I ignored sports for the entire time I considered myself male, yet as I get more comfortable as a female I find myself enjoying sports (especially baseball) a lot more.  I've always sort of resented sports, as they were a representation of my maleness that I couldn't get away from - but as that social pressure is taken away, it gets more enjoyable.  Go figure.

As for the Red Sox - it's weird, but I like them a lot more for what they represent than for what they do on the field.  I know that people complain that "Red Sox Nation" is just a big marketing ploy to get money, but it doesn't bother me.  I love the togetherness it brings to the city that I live in.  I think it's cool that you can walk into a random bar and really cheer with a crowded room of strangers because you genuinely all want the same thing.  I love that when I meet a stranger in Massachusetts, I am 90% likely to have at least one interest in common with them.  And definitely most important of all, my father is getting older, and I feel like the Sox have brought us a lot closer.  I've now witnessed Curt Schilling's 200th win, Dustin Pedroia's first home run (I was one row away, in the Green Monster seats, from where it landed!), and Clay Bucholz's no-hitter (on the day I moved into this apartment!), all with my father.  And those are all things that I'll remember for the rest of my life.