"Transgenderism"

I just started my career as a financial advisor by joining a team at Northwestern Mutual. I am the only trans person in the entire office, and most of the employees are cishet white men. I love the job and a lot of the people are extremely encouraging and love to mentor others. I’m already finding success and gratitude in what I’m doing. All that being said, some of my worst fears surrounding being the only trans employee in the Cincinnati office are coming true.

I knew going into this job that I would be a trailblazer - that I would have to be. I knew I would have to educate people, and that most people would expect me to be the voice of an entire community. I knew people wouldn’t understand, and do their best to be respectful without accepting it completely. I knew I would face microaggressions that I would have to explain why I was hurt by them. And I knew some people would be flat out not give the effort to try and respect my existence. 

I didn’t know how it would feel to be drunkenly confronted with a coworker who believed in the disease of transgenderism. I didn’t know that my reaction would be to run. I didn’t know that I would want to cry and make myself as small as possible. I didn’t know that this person would find it appropriate to keep touching me as I shrunk closer and closer to the person defending me. I didn’t know I would no longer be able to look that person in the eye. It’s one thing to know intellectually that you will have to face these conversations, and it’s another thing entirely to be faced with it for the first time.

This person wasn’t trying to understand, they were trying to make me see that my identity was too much for them to get. They were trying to show how accepting they are by telling me about their friend from the army who just came out “as a woman” but proceeded to call her a man and use he/him pronouns when speaking about her. The person was truly trying to convince me that they are a good person, without taking other people’s thoughts or feelings into consideration as they did that. 

I truly believe they were so caught up in the confusion about their own friend that they didn’t stop to realize that 1. Their friend is probably so much happier living as her true self and that her decision has nothing to do with you as a person and 2. You telling me you have a trans friend doesn’t make your comments any less hurtful or make me any more convinced that you accept me or her as people.

I feel embarrassed by my reaction to this person’s comments. I feel that I should have done more. I felt like all of my worst fears about being in a professional setting and having to navigate being trans came true in that moment. I felt that I had found the wrong place because no one here understands who I am and what nonbinary is or means.

The following week, someone came in to my training class to talk about diversity and inclusion. He talked very eloquently about race being a social construct, and to many of the white cis men in the room, it was extremely powerful. Someone mentioned never thinking about that. I jumped in and mentioned that a lot of things are social constructs - for example, gender is a social construct. The leader looked at me in confusion. “Tell me more about that” he said. I was taken aback, I thought he would surely understand my point. “Well” I stammered, “similarly to how race is a social construct, so is gender. It was created to oppress others. Sex and organs are very real, but the gender associated with them is not.” I tried to defend myself but began to shut down. He looked me in the eye and said, “now see I don’t agree with you there. Gender is made by God.”

I felt heartbroken that I had to hear that from a black man teaching the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. I didn’t know how that would feel before it happened. I wasn’t aware how tired I would get of people asking me about the pronouns for other people while still messing up my own.

One of my coworkers has been continuously misgendering me so i sent him an email about it. He sent something back saying how it was my preferred pronouns and how it wasn't his worldview so i had to give him patience as he learns with me. He’s a really nice person and I knew it wasn’t intentionally transphobic, but I got scared anyway. It was invalidating even though I knew his intention was to be kind and accepting. 

I am well aware these are not the last conversation on the topic I’ll have, and that the office isn’t going to change overnight. It’s painfully obvious that this sort of interaction is something I’m going to have to get used to and get comfortable with. For the most part I know when I’m able to have those conversations and when I have the capacity to handle the objections. I also know that if someone writes off my existence entirely I will find it a lot harder to defend myself or even carry a conversation with that person.