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Transition At Work
The road to transitioning at work is a pretty well worn one at this point. Provided you have a company that's not going to fire you, you get all your ducks in a row, you wait until you're almost ready to transition, then you go to the Human Resources office, you tell your story, and they meet with people and create a plan for transition.
It all seems so simple.
But I don't work for a company, I work for the government of a small town of 10,000 residents. We don't even have a human resources person, much less a department. And I had other things to consider. I'm the only IT person at the town and because of this, I have contact with virtually every single employee and office in the town. But the bigger issues were political. I'm a department head (albeit for a department without any other staff) and while hardly a political figure, I'm high profile enough to testify before several citizen committees and to have served on the local cable tv committee as a technical consultant. The selectmen and other town officials know me on a first name basis. And town government in Massachusetts is often a focus for local discontent. We have a very active local weekly newspaper that unlike most "Weekly Advertiser" style papers actually covers town affairs in depth. And there was the specter of Town Meeting, a New England tradition where our "legislature" is made up of all the citizens in the town, who come together twice a year in the school gym to vote on budgets and other motions. I had to concern myself with disclosing to elected officials as well as worry about coverage from the press and the possibility of citizen complaints or at worst a scene at town meeting.
After my consultation with Dr. Ousterhout in July, I went to the closest person our town has to a Human Resources person, which was our assistant town manager. She also had an advantage of being one of the most liberal people I knew in Town Hall and had been a good work friend.
She often works late so I began to stay after work and scout out when she was in the office alone. It took a week to find a night and I nervously stalked into her office holding an envelope with my letter (a variant on the one from Sally's Resource Morsel tsresource.info) and told her I had something very important to talk to her about regarding work. Right away I could hear from the change on the tone of her voice that she knew this wasn't something normal.
My disclosure was simple. I try to break the ice on these with a little bit of humor. I said I hadn't been on vacation, but had been in San Francisco to consult with a specialist surgeon. She went a bit pale. I then went on to say "he specializes in facial reconstructions of accident victims, children with birth defects, and male to female transsexuals." I paused and then went on "I'm not a child and I haven't been in any auto accidents recently." She smiled and congratulated me. I wasn't really surprised, but I was certainly relieved. We spoke about my transition and the personal and employment issues for a few hours. It was a great relief to finally have it out. We decided to keep it to ourselves for the moment and that as it got closer to my surgery date, we would discuss it in a meeting with the Town Administrator and my direct supervisor the Finance Director. She also agreed to keep an ear open for any rumors or anything else until then.
In late September I set up another meeting with my two direct supervisors, the Town Administrator and the Finance Director. I figured we had October to plan and then November to execute my coming out. I handed the Town Administrator and Finance Director my letter. The Finance Director finished first, shrugged, and said "I have no problem with that." The Town Administrator said pretty much the same thing. I included a packet of information including an article and book on dealing with transgendered workers. And just in case someone had funny ideas about getting rid of me, I included two items detailing The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination ruling that transgendered people were protected by Massachusetts law under general "gender." This was one of the good parts about being in the municipal world, the town is pretty much forced to follow the law and if it didn't, I had state civil service venues to appeal to. We spent a while talking about the issues and agreed to meet a second time.
At the second meeting we had a conference call with another town that had dealt with one of their firefighters transitioning. It was reassuring since in the end everything had gone well. However, it was also alarming because it had been a huge ordeal to get through, complete with The Boston Glove, AP, and three of the local television stations covering it. It also gave us a few ideas. Everyone felt that for the most part people in town hall would be accepting. We identified a few people likely to have issues and discussed how to deal with them. We decided that as low key a process as possible was the best option. I brought up the bathroom issue, but as far as my supervisors were concerned, I was a woman and would use the woman's bathroom. I told them I would use the single one in the back of the building for the short term, something I continued until I returned from SRS six months after going full time.
At this second meeting we also discussed how to deal with my absence in pure job terms. In addition to a municipal environment creating certain challenges, I am also the only computer person employed by the town and most of our employees have poor computer skills. The three weeks I would be out for FFS would be the longest time I'd ever been away and could present issues. I made provisions for remote access, updated my supervisor with how to do the daily backups and other maintenance, and made up a troubleshooting checklist. I also gave them an extensive itinerary, so they knew when and where I could be contacted and in the case of the first few days after surgery, what kind of shape I might be in.
A great deal of time was spent deciding what to do about the Selectmen. They are, in effect, my employers. And they had a right to know. But at the same time, they are politicians and their reaction couldn't be guaranteed. There are also requirements about public disclosures. If a majority of them were present for a meeting, the topic and agenda would need to be published in the local newspaper. More than anything, we had doubts that disclosure to a group of very social people could be kept secret for very long. In the end, my town administrator decided to not inform them prior to my coming out at work. And then to inform them immediately with a phone call.
I had timed my surgery and full time date to be as unobtrusive as possible and I think this is really important. I had responsibilities, particularly as nobody could fill in for me. And I wanted to cause my supervisors the least amount of hassle possible. December on Cape Cod is extremely quiet. Even "full time" residents tend to leave for a month or two. I timed my surgery so that the announcement to the town hall staff would be after our town meeting. And even the newspaper was less likely to report on me as the holidays are usually filled with the standard holiday stories. We decided to disclose to the staff a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday. We wanted a few days lead time because it seemed important for me to be in the office the following day. Our thought was that if it was done over a weekend or worse a long weekend, people might inflate the issue in their minds. Where if they saw me the following day, I would still be the same normal person they had known before and this would cushion the shock.
The procedure would be simple. I would have a short meeting with the staff in the office I am physically located in. I work with these people every day and felt they should hear it face to face. Then I would send an all staff email followed by our Town Manager sending a corresponding one. I would also make myself available after work in the break room for anyone that had any questions or wanted to talk. I'd also leave some resources for people who might not feel comfortable talking with me directly, including copies of True Selves and She's Not There.
The day of the disclosure, we summoned the necessary staff to a meeting in the Town Manager's Office. We very rarely have staff meetings, so people were aware that this was something important. I handed them the letter and let them read it. None of them at the meeting had any issue. One woman who had started work in July well after I was on HRT waved the letter at me and and said "I've been waiting for this since I started here." After this I went to my desk and sent the email. The responses were immediate and entirely positive. They ranged from praising my bravery to a smiling woman who proclaimed "one more of us, one less of them!" (Of a town hall staff of almost 40, only 5 are men.)
In the end, none of the people we were concerned about were a problem. In fact, one politically conservative Selectman turned out to be one of my largest supporters. One person expressed some fears about the rest room issue. And to our surprise, one of the most liberal minded people in the office that we had put on our mental "safe list" objected strenuously and tried to have me terminated. She was told that this was unacceptable and our relationship has settled into a polite détente.
In fact, the response was good enough that a few days after surgery a get well card from the office appeared at Cocoon House signed by most of the staff. A few individual cards arrived as well. When I returned to work everything went quite well. There are occasional pronoun mixups, but virtually no actual negativity.
So why did my transition go well? The biggest thing would be meticulous planning. I had everything scripted. I had a good sense of how people would react. And I was reasonably well thought of at work, both personally and professionally. I also had all the information available and tailored to what I thought would be the best way to go about things. I also passed well and put off transition until I was certain I would pass well, even though this meant a good amount of awkwardness before transition. I also owe a great deal to my supervisors who were willing to work with me and trusted that I knew what I was doing.
Oh and much to our surprise, nothing was written about it in the newspaper. We're sure that someone told them. But apparently something that personal wasn't seen as a fit topic.
Created on 02/14/2006 12:54 PM by admin
Updated on 02/14/2006 12:59 PM by admin
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