Don’t think you’ll ever work with a trans* person? You just might. Parker Marie Molloy has an FAQ for those questions you’re not sure you want to ask.
As a recently out transgender woman at Starcom’s Chicago office, there are certain experiences and perspectives that I believe I am uniquely qualified to provide. As transgender individuals make up somewhere between 0.25% and 1% of the general population – as estimated by the National Transgender Center for Equality – it’s understandable that many of my co-workers had never met, let alone worked with, an openly transgender person before. That said, they’ve all been wonderful. So in the interest of nurturing a culture of corporate acceptance, I’d like to offer up a “trans-in-the-workplace” primer.
2. Why are transgender individuals that way?
No.
In 34 states, it remains legal to fire (or not hire) someone solely because they are transgender. Additionally, UCLA’s Williams Institute notes that transgender individuals were unemployed at a rate twice that of the general population, with 15 percent of all transgender individuals reporting an income of less than $10,000 annually.
The important thing to remember is that transgender people are simply trying to live their lives, trying to be true to themselves. -PMM
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6. Are drag queens (and kings) considered transgender? What about cross-dressers?
In the absolute broadest sense of the term, the answer is…maybe, but not necessarily. Drag queens and kings are performers who put on a persona – usually wearing loud and over-the-top outfits associated with the gender opposite the sex they were assigned at birth – as part of a performance. Cross-dressers are most often straight non-transgender men who wear women’s clothing for some sort of personal enjoyment or excitement. At the end of the day, both drag performers and cross dressers put their clothes away and return to their lives as non-transgender individuals. This is not to say that there aren’t drag performers or cross-dressers who turn out to be transgender; it’s just not the norm.
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This reminds me of a workplace I was in in 2000. I was working in a government department in an office building and through some statistical anomaly the floor I worked on had 73 women, One transgender female (is that right, she had changed from male to female) and myself. (For those of you think 74 women for one guy that must of been heaven for a single guy let me just say NO NEVER AGAIN lol) When she started work after her operation there was a huge (and i mean HUGE) fight about which toilet she should use, how… Read more »