Settling in at work

• Posted by Deborah Taylor March 25, 2014 #working as a woman  1,985 views
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  Well, I'm now into week two working at the office in my preferred presentation. It has been amazing. I have to keep pinching myself to let myself know I'm not dreaming it.

   

  Everybody has been really nice so far, but on Monday I was approached by one of the team leaders from a team that I don't work in. At first he was hesitant about broaching it, but I got it out of him that people outside of my immediate teams were afraid of raising the subject in case the offended or upset me. I must point out - this is not my bosses; they are happy with me as long as I'm a happy little worker who churns out code at my usual rate. Whilst they might ask me to stop coming in dressed as a giant piece of celery, they don't have a problem with me being trans.

   

  I guess the other teams's response is why there are special training courses. 

   

  Instead of booking everybody on diversity training, I decided to send an email in my inimitable style. I explained what being trans is and means, and how they should refer to me, but pointed out that I'm not going to flip out if they don't. I think I got the balance of the email right, because I had an upswelling of positive responses, including an email hug from one of our far flung employees who's rarely in the office. I feel it has broken the tension that has built over the past week, and one person who'd avoided talking to me, started again; whilst several people have spoken to me to ask questions, and learn to understand. The fact, to a person, they want to understand how to interact with trans people once more tells me how wonderful they all are.

  It's no wonder I'm happy and need to keep pinching myself.