8 posts tagged “coming out”
There's something that feels disturbingly nerdy about writing a blog post about a thread in an online forum. I don't think I'm going to be able to shake that as I write this. Oh well. (note: I am rereading this post having finished it, and I can't believe how long this ended up!)
The group forums went really well. I think the combined attendance of the three meetings was somewhere between 150-200 people? After last week's session for management, I accepted the fact that there was no point in planning what I was going to say. From the feedback that I've received, that was correct - if I'm going to be talking about probably the toughest personal decision I've made to a huge crowd of my peers, I feel like it wouldn't have seemed genuine for me to be following a script. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from the people who were there, so that's good! To be honest, now that all is said and done, I really kind of enjoyed running those sessions..
My brain works in a weird way. There is a lot of stuff out there that is common knowledge out there that I can't be bothered with. I have always been utter dead weight in a game of Trivial Pursuit, and I've come to realize that it's because I only focus my attention on topics that interest me. This is pretty much the reason that I never succeeded in a school setting - half the time I couldn't pretend to care what the professor was talking about. I try to make up for it by being knowledgable with the topics that do interest me - realizing this is what helped me find a job that I ultimately both enjoy and am (I think?) reasonably good at.
Fortunately for me, my gender issues have been at the forefront of my brain for years. While this has resulted in me being a bit oversensitive at times, it has also very well prepared to talk about it. As I have said to some co-workers, the actual public speaking part was absolutely fine, but the half-hour before each meeting was really tough. The Q&A parts were fun, but I've found that a lot of people have saved questions for private conversations after the meeting - and that's fine!
I might be good at hiding it (or I might not be), but my first day of work at female (Sept 8th) is going to likely be the most terrifying thing I'll ever do, so the more I know people are comfortable around me, the better. I'm finding that while I might lose the work relationship I had with a few people, I'm getting to know a lot of people better, which more than balances things out. I'll have spent a week living full-time female before I go in since I'm taking a vacation, so I'm hoping I'll feel immersed by then.
On a complete tangent, we found an apartment last night! I'm going in to sign for it in two hours, and barring any disasters I'll be living on a street behind the Shaw's in Packard's Corner in Allston*. It somehow managed to be nicer , larger, and yet somehow cheaper than most other places we looked at in Allston. It also comes with a parking spot, and I believe we're just going to get resident parking passes and rent the spot for $100-$150/month (which apparently is a common practice). Also, I remembered to verify that I paid a last months' rent on my current place, and I did, so it was like earning $1000+ for the next high-spending month :)
To summarize: yesterday was a good day.
*I just realized that I'll be living on "Hartley Terrace, near Packard's Corner" with a roommate who has the thickest Boston accent I've ever heard. That will be good for a year's worth of entertainment in and of itself.
Hello everyone,
Thank you for your overwhelming acceptance to attend this educational forum. As discussed in the directors’ meeting, the purpose of this forum is to educate us about our fellow transgender passengers. Denise Leclair from Transgender Tapestry will present information as well as allow time for Q&A. Additionally, the employee that is celebrating this change will be in attendance and looks forward to answering your questions.
The
objective of the meeting is that we, as leaders, leave better prepared
to assist our staff in irradiating misunderstandings, stereotypes, and
other forms of not knowing to prevent prejudices from occurring in our
workplace. Thus, not only will we learn more about transgender in
general but also what actions positively show support as members of
management. Please feel free to invite any of your managerial staff
that you feel is appropriate.
Following this session will be 2 meetings that are open to all NH employees so that they too can use this as a learning opportunity. HR is working with Marketing on communicating the dates and times for the afternoon of August 4th and late morning of August 6th.
If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
---Two days ago, I had the first of three "Trasngender Understanding" panels at work. My first goal with these meetings is to educate the company on what exactly it means to be transgendered. My second is to come out as transgendered myself, and let people know a bit more about why I am doing what I am doing and what they can expect to happen. All in all, I'm really happy with the way things turned out.
Unfortunately for me, the forum was at 3:00, so I had a lot of time to anticipate it. I started out the day mildly distracted and attempted to focus on my job and not think about it, but it started to hit home after lunch. As 3:00 came and I started to see manager after manager walking toward the conference room, my nerves were working overtime. I asked someone if there were a lot of people in there, and was told that they took the divider down between our two largest conference rooms to fit roughly 60 people inside.
There were a few instances where I sat down and tried to figure out/write down what I would say when it was my turn to speak, but for the most part I figured I would wing it. History has taught me - and this blog likely proves it - that I have no trouble finding stuff to talk about in regards to my transition, and so it didn't seem necesary to me to go in with much. Somewhere around 3:30 (minutes before I was scheduled to speak), I decided to keep it quick, and to just take people chronologically through my gender identity.
Eventually, Cathi introduced me (as "Michelle") and I entered the room, and people started applauding. With the exception of two wedding speeches and a year-plus-long stint working at a laser-tag arena (where I'd teach groups of people to play), I've never really public spoken in my life. I tried to focus on the fact that I knew for a fact that there would be supportive people in the room, and that I have known and grown to like a lot of them over the last two years. I entered the room and the crowd started applauding - somewhat illogically, it good job of relaxing me and making me nervous at the same time.
I think I kept it brief? I know for a fact that I was nervous to the point of sweating while I was speaking - I'm pretty sure that I just said "oh hey, I'm super-nervous right now" so that would be right out on the table. To be honest, I don't really remember what I said! I definitely want to record either Monday or Wednesday, so that I can actually see what one of these meetings looks like from an audience point of view. I answered some questions - there weren't too too many, but I just take that to mean that Denise and Cathi did their jobs well.
I talked with a few coworkers after the meeting, all of whom had positive things to say. To anyone from work reading this blog - it means alot! I have total faith that my transition will go over relatively smoothly, and so far there hasn't been anything to really dissuade me.
The next two meetings are Monday and Wednesday. Unlike the one I did already, these will be open to the entire company. I don't know if I'm expecting more or less people, but I do think that I'm more prepared simply because I've done once before now. At some point I decided that I will be taking Labor Day week (Aug. 30 - Sept. 5) off, using that time to both move (apartments) and to organize myself from a "legal documents" standpoint - when I come back to work, I will be presenting female full-time. I anticipate one awkward week where people (including myself, most of all) get used to the change, and then a slide back into normalcy.
As a note to end the post - It blows my mind that I will soon be a legal female. Like, once I do the stuff in the paragraph above...that's it for a long time. I will be living as a woman 100% of the time. The only real steps left at that point are (a) save for surgeries, which, yes, I do want, and (b) get used to living the life I've always wanted but never expected to have. I still have an idea in my head of moving somewhere outside of New Engalnd and starting over, but I now I feel I have a couple years up here left in me, thanks to the overwhelming support of the people around me on a day to day/year to year basis. Thanks as always!
I talked with Cathi and explained to her that I'm just not ready to go full-time in the near-future yet. I explained to her the points that I brainstormed in my post yesterday, and she seemed understanding. However, it's come up that the rumor mill is spreading, people are finding out about me, and not every opinion has been necesarily positive. In other words, it's in my best interest to at least come out soon. My hope and assumption is that people's issues with transexuality stem from lack of knowledge, and that there is some sort of hope in winning people over/back.
We discussed an informal timetable for my transition, and while it's the type of thing that I normally have trouble sticking to, I'm going to do my absolute best here.
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Wednesday: At the Senior Leadership meeting, Cathi will inform the directors that there is a transgendered employee intending to transition within the company. She isn't going to identify who just yet - this is more to feel out their reaction to get an idea of what I can expect when I come out to everyone else, and to start educating from the top down.
Thursday: I'll meet with Cathi again to get feedback about Wednesday.
~the next two weeks: I will attempt to work with the Diversity Council (the committee at work in charge of uploading the culture of tolerance and open-mindedness which I am hoping to be a recipient of) to organize a sort of Coming Out Event. Some people will speak, I'll give a small speech (which, knowing me, I'll likely attempt to 'wing'), and then I'll try to field questions. Hopefully I will be able to answer questions well - I'll make sure to throw some friends in the audience to lob me softballs :)
My plan is to come out the day before the Pride Parade in Boston on the 13th. (even though Friday the 13th seems kind of unlucky, heh) I doubt I'd march in the parade, but I'd like to see it at least once, and this way I would be covered if someone from work saw me there.
(after that)
~the next three months, in work: I will slowly start to feminize my appearance, something to the effect of the way I've done it outside of work. While I won't ask people to use female name/pronouns, I will certainly welcome it. I will make it known that people can feel free to ask me any questions that they might have, and in doing so will hopefully cement myself into a comfortable position for when I do choose to start going full-time. Hopefully, and I have every reason to think this will be the case, the amount of people supporting me will far outnumber those with objections.
~the next three months, outside of work: I will start taking care of legal documents and name/gender change stuff. I will start trying to present female "for no reason" so that I can (a) get used to it and (b) get others used to it. I will continue with hormones and laser to attempt to fix the boobs/lip hair issues. I will (slowly) get to the point where people can reasonably expect that I will be presenting female when they see me. The plan is to small and work at it, kind of like learning how to run a marathon.
Sometime near Labor Day: I will announce to my co-workers that I will be coming back to work as Michelle. I'll probably do so on a Friday so that I can torture myself all that weekend thinking about what that Monday will be like. And then that Monday - I will try to start going full-time.
---
Again, I've been historically pretty bad at sticking to a schedule in the past, this is pretty much the most significant thing that I've ever had to schedule. I'm sure I'll fall off-track at some point, so all I can do is trust that I'll figure stuff out as I hit trouble spots. Right now, I'm pretty much waiting until Thursday, after which I can start to panic about what the hell I'm going to say next week.
((to end this post, I just had the brainstorm of hoping that the Celtics win the NBA finals and then holding the coming out party the day after. That way, I could just call the meeting the "CELTICS and coming out CELEBRATION" and guarantee that people would show up. And it would give me a better reason than "drinking with friends" to watch Celtics games, which would be neat.))
I've been meaning to make a note somewhere of the fact that I've been out to my family for a year now. I came out to my parents on the Friday before Mother's Day, and to my brothers on Mother's Day proper. So wow, yeah...honestly, I couldn't be happier since coming out to everyone. Having to put a huge effort into hiding such a huge facet of my life broke me down to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. Since coming out, everyone has been really supportive and I feel really comfortable in terms of where I belong with my family.
On that note, I came out to the Human Resources Director at my job today. And, like I suspected/hoped, she was completely supportive about it. I made mention that she has my blessing to tell the rest of the HR department - I imagine that I will be having some conversations regarding my being transgendered, but I welcome that! The honest truth is that as long as my job isn't at risk (and right now I have every reason to believe it isn't), I'm pretty much ready for the world to know.
Up next - I start slowly letting people know, I guess. I had planned to wait until I was ready to go full-time because I didn't want to confuse people, but in retrospect I think it makes more sense to ease people in so as not to shock them. I guess I'm just going to find a few people that I trust, let them know, hope that they're with me, and then move on to a few more people. I plan to make this blog public so that I don't have to explain everything to every person. My hope is that. This blog will hopefully be a really useful tool in that regard. While I'm on the topic:
Click here to start at the beginning, and then "next" on each page to go in chronological order.
Finally, though - progress. I had a really rough Monday, where I found myself in a really bad mood early on in the day and I absolutely couldn't snap myself out of it. It was a day where I felt really bothered, and couldn't explain why. I ended up taking yesterday off so that I could gather my thoughts and pick myself up, and I came to a few conclusions. The first conclusion is that I was stressed out - I've been oversocializing and letting some important stuff get out of control - I did my best to accomplish basic stuff that I've been putting off, which I think is exactly what I needed. The second is that - yes, the hormones are starting to take a noticable effect. I used to have the blessing/curse of being incredibly good at hiding bad moods (blessing because it made me a genuinely positive person, curse because I couldn't control it), and I'm finding it harder and harder. I've cried three times at work in the last week (all involving direct conversations with people regarding conflicts). I keep having to leave for "personal appointments" that are in fact therapy/laser/endo sessions. And I'm afraid to mention it because I don't really need people looking, but I will say that I'm finding it harder and harder to wear just t-shirts anymore without being super-conscious of how I sit.
Once I feel like I've gotten a feel on the work situation, the hurdle to tackle is actually trying to spend a weekend or soemthing full-time presenting female. I'm not sure if I want to do it in the atmosphere of a vacation so that I can sort of "start fresh" for a bit, or to just pick a weekend here and do it. Much like everything else, I'll probably wing it until I find some reason that the time is right, and make my decision then :)
I told myself that my reward for coming out to work will be to get my ears pierced. Yeah I am! I'll probably get my eyebrows waxed as well, since I had that done once a long time ago and really liked the way it looked.
In general, though - life has been pretty swell. Things are looking up!
First off: boobs. By my count, I'm now 50 days into hormones, and I'm finally noticing a difference in that department. My nipples are definitely sensitive - I actually just noticed this tonight, but the realization is kind like..."woah". When I look at myself in the mirror, I can see it - I'm starting to get breasts.
The timing for this is interesting. Summer is coming, which means less/thinner clothes, which means it will get harder to hide. For the times where I'm trying to pass as male, I intend to just buy some tight white t-shirts and wear them under other t-shirts. My hopes are that I'm covered for this year, and I'll pass/be full-time at this point next year. Also, bathing suit-related activities are likely not going to be happening for me for awhile. I'm already at the point where I'd feel uncomfortable being seen topless.
Cool. :)
In other news, I'm going to be going back to CT next month to interact with a large number of friends that I haven't seen regularly/at all in five years. I played Magic: The Gathering (still do! shhhh..) in Connecticut at a store called Barron's Comics and Cards pretty much every week from 1998-2003 until I moved to Boston. The original owner of the store, Barron, passed away last week. While Barron wasn't close - I haven't seen/heard from him in probably 7 years - I did like him and consider him fun to be around and it's sad to hear he's gone. First weekend in April, we're trying to get all of the old regulars from 5-10 years ago together to hang out, catch up, and play cards for a day. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again.
Anyhow, one of my friends from the Barron's days messaged me to ask if I had heard about Barron, which got us talking about the 'good ol' days' and what everyone is up to. I knew that there are at least two people from the CT Magic people that have read this journal, so I assumed that he would probably know that I'm transgendered. Never assume! He had no idea, so he gave me the expected reaction - surpirsed at first (in one day, he found out one old friend was dead and another is having a sex change) but not letting it change his opinion of who I am. Tommy, if you're reading this, sorry for the surprise factor there! :D
So yeah, that's almost like a dirty secret - I play Magic and have played for 14 years. I live by two rules: I have never really discussed gender issues with Magic players, and I've never discussed Magic with anyone outside of Magic ("tranny" is enough social stigma for me!). They're such an overwhelmingly male crowd, especially in regards to immaturity + competitiveness, that I never really knew how it would be received. I've never really sat and thought through how I would handle transitioning in regards to Magic player because I think I kind of figured I would be done with it once I became female. I do think, though, that it would be sad to lose touch with so many people that I like, so when the topic of "what's up with you?" inevitably comes up next month, I'm fully planning on just explaining it and hoping/assuming that there won't be any issues. I wish I could trick myself into thinking I'd be comfortable showing up presenting female, but I'm not even close to there yet.
I need to get out female more. Laziness and anxiety are evil beasts!
Nightline is having a special now on a MtF Microsoft executive. Despite her and her co-workers explain that she's full time 'Megan', they use male pronouns and refer to her as Michael. That rubs me quite the wrong way for some reason. I feel like they're trying to make it look controversial even though the people they're interviewing are saying it's really not. Megan herself seems quite down-to-earth, which I appreciate it.
Good night!
BATs, the support group at MIT that I go to, is pretty cool. When I first started going there, I was afraid that I wouldn't have enough in common with the people there to warrant me coming back. As I've started returning more (and contributing more to the general conversation), I'm finally starting to have that elusive place where I feel 100% being myself. Even though I skipped a few meetings before the last two (for reasons that were mostly rationalizations of my not wanting to take the effort/risk to present female that night), they're slowly becoming something that I legitimately look forward to each other week. I had a meeting tonight, which gave me a reason to present for the first time since before Thanksgiving, and I've come home feeling rather confident and positive in general.
When I got home from the meeting tonight, I grew hungrier and realized that there was nothing really viable as a dinner option. I decided to order food from Wing It, the not-so-great-but-hey-they-deliver option in my area. On the phone, they asked for my name, and I gave them "Michelle". I stayed dressed, and answered the door when the guy arrived. Lo and behold - this guy has certainly delivered to me before, probably remembers me because I order the same thing each time and tip a ton, and almost certainly was expecting [male] to answer. He seemed visibly surprised when I answered the door, but any reservations that he had vanished when I gave him $15 on a $10 order.
Not a huge deal on paper, but it's the first time that I let a stranger that would likely know me as male see me as female. I live next door to a number of businesses whose owners likely recognize me, and I think it will take all of them (with the exception of the laundromat guy, who I assume must have an inkling) by surprise. I mentioned at BATs the long-standing analogy I've used of transitioning being like a role-playing game - it's a process of doing something small, using it to level up (gain confidence), and then using that confidence to do more challenging things. Tonight's "dungeon" was "surprise-coming-out-to-strangers", and despite a feeling of nervous tension between the call and his arrival, everything went fine.
That's all for now! I swear I will actually make a second attempt to add people to my facebook sometime soon.
First of all, my last post was slightly inaccurate. I was mistakenly under the impression that my parents were moving out of North Haven last weekend. As it turns out, all they wanted was help moving excess things in the old house to the new house, so as to free up space (to help sell the old house) and to make the eventual move easier. I think this is a good thing - even though the new house in Westbrook is really awesome, it will never have the same "home" vibe that I feel in North Haven.
The weekend had its ups and downs. On one hand, I got to spend quality time with my family. My mother took some time to help me with my eyebrows (which had been getting bushy); I watched a Red Sox game with my dad, I took a trip to Rhode Island with my brother where I got to have a nice conversation with him about everything we could think of. I got to catch the tail end of dinner/a movie with some high school friends, with whom it was nice to catch up. On the other hand, there was a lot of time spent sitting in the moving van, a lot of physical work, and some of the most uncomfortable arguing I've experienced in a long time. My brother and I do not like unnecesary critisism and hate conflict - my mother doesn't seem to know any other way, and as usual it resulted in a lot of tension.
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On Saturday, my brother and I took a detour to Rhode Island to drop some furniture off at his house in Cumberland. We stopped at a gas station, and I went to use the (men's, as I wasn't presenting female) bathroom, located on the side of the building, while he pumped gas. I entered the bathroom as someone else was leaving, shut and locked the door behind me, and did what I had to do. I went to leave, and - no could do. I had locked the door, but found that I could no longer unlock it as it was wedged in the "horizontal" position. I tried everything I could think of - brute strength, wiggling the doorknob, pushing/pulling the door - but I couldn't dislodge it. I was wearing women's pants with no pockets, so I had no access to my cellphone. I tried pounding on the door and yelling for help, but no one responded. I even found an air freshener in there and tried to use it like a credit card to pick the lock, but that was a dismal failure.
Some time passed - probably 5 minutes or so? - and I eventually heard my brother calling my name. I shouted that I was locked in the bathroom and told him to ask the clerk for a key so that he could try to open the door from the outside. I waited another couple of minutes, and instead of my brother opening the door with a key, he instructed me to stand away from the door.
BOOM!
He kicked it open! I could tell he was absolutely pissed off. We got in the van and he explained what happened:
Brother: "Excuse me, my brother* is locked in the bathroom. He can't open the door."
Clerk: "It's open."
Brother: "....it's wedged shut. He can't open the door."
Clerk: "Is he a man or what? Tell him to just open it!"
Brother: "Are you serious? Can I just have a key?"
Clerk: "It's open."
* (sigh)
I know that the average male isn't necesarily that bad, but that's the exact kind of macho bullshit mentality that I can't wait to distance myself from once and for all. The idea that someone would not help me in a situation like that because I'm supposed to "man up" is gets me really upset. I know it was likely just the clerk being really lazy, but still. It wasn't until we drove away that the guy even bothered getting up off his ass to take a look at the door - I really hope that door was messed up and that that clerk gets fired. If I had randomly arrived there alone and got locked in, I would have pretty much been trapped until the next person who needed to use the bathroom showed up.
It wasn't until the ride home that I started thinking about the metaphor in what had happened. I was helpless, stuck in the men's room, unable to use any "manly" skills to find my way out of the situation. I felt completely trapped and didn't know what to do. Eventually, I reached out for help, and with the aid of someone I trust, was able to get out and be free again :)
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I feel like this post is short, especially given that there was a three day break, but I'm really tired. I've been absolutely horrendous in terms of sleep habits, and I think my health is going to suffer if I don't start forcing myself into bed by midnight. On the other hand, my friend Anthony is visiting from San Diego and will likely be hanging out on random nights this week, so that's probably not going to happen. Oh well, socialization is more rewarding than sleep anyways :)
Good night, blog!
