Post #3080664

Bear in mind that I am writing this while a (cis) women’s employee group is having a regular lunch get-together. They are in the office doing networking, I am at home deliberately avoiding it. In my office of ~500 people, I am the only semi-out trans person. Not even trans fem, just trans at all. And “semi-out” because I stopped doing visibility events several years ago, am post-op, enough years on HRT that people say I am passing (…”passing”…as a real human being?) so I am kind of stealth. People have forgotten the old events, and even I can barely remember deadself’s face. I am in the window, finally, of a new chapter in my life. So given all that, let’s do some math. Suppose that the women’s event had explicitly said in the flyer “all women – trans and cis – are welcome!” And suppose that worked to draw in the trans women – oops, I meant the singular trans woman, me – to the event. From their perspective, perhaps 40 people attending becomes 41. But from my perspective, perhaps zero people clocking me becomes up to 40. And once clocked, it’s forever. My face isn’t changing anymore: the baby trans stage is half a decade behind me. I can adjust weight perhaps, or style – so long as it continues to conform to Western notions of appropriate business casual attire – but overall I cannot expect that whatever people see now will be lost to time someday. Not like deadself’s pre-E, pre-laser, pre-electrology, pre-ffs face: that’s gone forever, good riddance. What I’ve got now is what I’m stuck with for my remaining lifespan. So what do I gain if up to 40 cis women lock my face into their “not really the same as the rest of us” mental bucket? I gain stress. I gain worry. I gain the seed of a belief that my career at this employer has encountered its end. And that none of those 40 women would be able to help me discover a role at any other employer. … As a baby trans, an event like this might have been advantageous. Find a few folks who might run defense during the transition itself. Learn some things about work life and womanhood, perhaps. But now? Now, there really is no upside. There is no way to gain the middling benefits of “networking with other women” without also risking the enormous penalty of “losing stealth, practically”. Not until cis people are able to prove that they mean what they say when they utter the famous line: trans women are women. Happy #Pride, I guess? 🤷‍♀️