workplace update
In an earlier entry, I talked about my first day at Starbucks and having to confront my manager about a potentially transphobic comment. After thinking and talking about it, I was feeling better about the whole thing. Lori's pointing out that the folks at work were maybe trying to mitigate their own gender issues as queer folks by making a comment about a transperson helped me out.
My second day was Tuesday, fourth of July. I worked six to close. You could see the fireworks from our parking lot, so we had a flood of customers right before the fireworks started, then nothing during the show. My manager sent me and the woman who was working the espresso bar out to watch the fireworks while she cleaned up the store. My coworker and I started talking. I told her I was a gender studies major, so she told me about this human sexuality class she had recently taken. "And guess what," she started breathlessly and wide-eyed, "I got to meet a transgender." Her neighbor apparently had come out to her about the same time she was taking this human sexuality class at IUPUI. As the conversation progressed, I told her I was an INTRAA board member.
Staring off at the fireworks, her comments punctuated regularly with, "Wow, that's beautiful," she said, "Yeah, I just feel so sorry for transgenders. I mean, gay people don't really accept them, normal people don't really accept them..." Now, clearly, there are lots of problems with her language that reveal problems with the way she's thinking about us. "Transgenders," feeling sorry for us, saying "normal people" when she meant "straight people." But she's on to something with that issue of the place of the T in GLBT. Her human sexuality professor did good work. I followed up, talking generally about how we have to have these conversations often, justifying our place in the GLB community.
The important point is that even though I never said "I'm trans," she took my comments to mean that I'd come out to her. I realized this when she was talking about all the things she's learned since she left the Amish community. "I've met a transgender--No make that two transgenders." I figured I was the second one.
I wasn't quite sure what my coworker thought after that conversation, whether or not she'd share the news with the other folks we work with ("Guess what? I've met two transgenders!"). I figured I should come out to my manager before any crazy rumors about me being an MTF started circulating.
I got a chance to talk to her about it last time I worked. I told her that this coworker had interpreted my statements as my coming out as trans. I told her I am trans, but I'm an FTM, so I don't have a transition yet to come. She said she figured (just because of the conversation we'd had or because she read me?) but it wasn't her business to be prying in to people's lives. She looked at my license and said, "You're young. When did you..."
I couldn't figure out what she was trying to ask me. I thought she was going to ask something about how long ago I'd turned 21. But she meant when did I transition. So we talked about it for a second. She told me about doing drag in St. Louis and how it seemed much more open there. It was a good bonding moment.
And now I'm actually out and settling in.
