I think it's time I went down the timeline of my gender journey again, similar to how I did in the Discovering Myself post, except in the context of how it affected my professional life.
I'm going to start with my first job, because even before I started questioning my gender/sexuality, there were little tidbits of things that happened that I feel were related to my development. I still remember them so clearly.
I was a deli clerk at Top Food and Drug, a grocery store that has since been replaced by Haggen. It was 2008, I was 18 years old, and I had no idea that I was trans. This may have been my first job, but I took it seriously, and I never wanted anything I did to be considered sub-par. I took pride in my work, and I wanted to excel above and beyond the call of duty. Eventually, when I got used to the job, I believe I did just that. I served the best damn Chinese food. If the food ever started to look dried out, I'd stir it around, and sometimes I'd even add just a tiny bit of water if the sauce was getting too thick. I secretly looked over the recipes in the back so I knew that I was doing when I was tending to the food. A few nights I even made extra chow mein and fried rice after the cooks had gone, because when we ran out of those we couldn't serve any of the combo meals. I think my cooking came out just as good as the other cooks (don't tell them that, they'd be pissed). In the dish pit, I cleaned those dishes spotless with time to spare.
This has generally been my work ethic ever since. I believe that if it's a job worth doing, it's a job worth doing well. This has caused some friction between my managers and I, because they believe a job is only worth doing if it doesn't make you go outside your regularly allotted hours for the week.
There was one employee who I considered to be a marvel. The perfect model of efficient and effective work. He was so fast and accurate with everything he did, I used him as the model of what I wanted to surpass at that job.
I'll never forget the story of how we met...
I had been working in the Chinese food section of the store for about 3 months, and my boss finally tells me that it's time for me to get experience in other parts of the store. So he moves me over to the deli one day. As we're walking over there, I'm scared, because the deli is a whole lot bigger than the Chinese food section, and I have no idea what I'm doing. So my boss tells me that I'm going to be trained by Esteban, and he'll show me how things are run back there.
After my boss gives me the general look around and explanations of how things work, he takes me to the walk in freezer and says,
I turn to the freezer and I see a guy fidgeting with some balloons. The guy turns around, revealing that he stuck two balloons into his shirt, like boobs. He poses seductively against a nearby table and says to me,
I'm a little bit in shock, because I've never seen anything like this in the workplace before, and I didn't know how to act. I turned to my boss, who was kind of giving Esteban a glare, and I turn back to Esteban, who is still posing seductively. He gives me a wink, and I totally break out laughing. I walk over to him, and the beginning of a great work relationship was born.
At this grocery store they strictly expected me to wear white button-up shirts, black pants, black socks, polished shoes, and a tie, in addition to my apron/vest and hat. They also said that we could have no facial hair below our upper lips. This meant I was tying a tie every day, cleaning my shoes, and shaving regularly.
One day a store manager approached me and told me I needed a haircut. I pointed out that there's no rule in the dress code that says my hair must be short, and they ignored my reply by saying,
I replied by saying that if that were true, they'd be telling my female co-workers to cut their hair too. They let two of them wear ponytails out the pack of their hats, and one of them wore her hair in a bun. My manager merely replied by saying,
To this day I find this memory infuriating. What the hell does gender have to do with this? Everyone has hair. The fact of the matter is that they're human beings with hair, just like me, and they're allowed to wear their hair long. And for some stupid arbitrary reason, I'm not.
So I didn't get a haircut. Instead, I stuffed my hair into my hat as best I could every day. This irritated that manager, but he couldn't order me to cut my hair if my hair was not sticking out of my hat whenever I was clocked in. I was jealous of my female co-workers, who had these wonderful ponytails out the back of their hats. I felt like it was completely unfair that I couldn't do the same thing. I wanted a ponytail, but because I had to stuff my hair into my hat, I wasn't able to grow it long enough to get one.
We had a customer enter the store one day who appeared to be a tall transgender woman in a lovely floral sun dress. My supervising cook kind of jabbed at me to look at her with a smirk on his face, since I didn't immediately notice. I looked up, saw her, smiled, looked at my supervisor, shrugged, and went back to work saying, "Alright."
This was the first transgender person I had ever knowingly seen in real life. This was before I knew the word transgender, and the only word I knew that fit the description was transvestite, which is a derogatory word the trans community really doesn't like, myself included. Most trans people consider it to be a slur, so I'm very glad I didn't say it that day.
So this customer was being served by my boss in the deli, while I was in the separate Chinese food section. My boss never serves people food, so this seemed particularly interesting to me. I figured he probably intended to serve her himself because he was gay, and felt that maybe he'd do a better job? I glanced up at the trans person, from time to time, out of curiosity. I wanted to talk to her for some reason, but I felt it'd be rude of me, and it'd just make us both uncomfortable. So I just continued to do my job while overhearing tiny pieces of what they were saying to each other.
My first job
I'm going to start with my first job, because even before I started questioning my gender/sexuality, there were little tidbits of things that happened that I feel were related to my development. I still remember them so clearly.
This has generally been my work ethic ever since. I believe that if it's a job worth doing, it's a job worth doing well. This has caused some friction between my managers and I, because they believe a job is only worth doing if it doesn't make you go outside your regularly allotted hours for the week.
There was one employee who I considered to be a marvel. The perfect model of efficient and effective work. He was so fast and accurate with everything he did, I used him as the model of what I wanted to surpass at that job.
I'll never forget the story of how we met...
I had been working in the Chinese food section of the store for about 3 months, and my boss finally tells me that it's time for me to get experience in other parts of the store. So he moves me over to the deli one day. As we're walking over there, I'm scared, because the deli is a whole lot bigger than the Chinese food section, and I have no idea what I'm doing. So my boss tells me that I'm going to be trained by Esteban, and he'll show me how things are run back there.
After my boss gives me the general look around and explanations of how things work, he takes me to the walk in freezer and says,
"Okay, Esteban, you can take it from here."
I turn to the freezer and I see a guy fidgeting with some balloons. The guy turns around, revealing that he stuck two balloons into his shirt, like boobs. He poses seductively against a nearby table and says to me,
"Come over here, big boy."
I'm a little bit in shock, because I've never seen anything like this in the workplace before, and I didn't know how to act. I turned to my boss, who was kind of giving Esteban a glare, and I turn back to Esteban, who is still posing seductively. He gives me a wink, and I totally break out laughing. I walk over to him, and the beginning of a great work relationship was born.
The Dress Code
One day a store manager approached me and told me I needed a haircut. I pointed out that there's no rule in the dress code that says my hair must be short, and they ignored my reply by saying,
"If you can't stuff your hair into your hat, then it's too long."
I replied by saying that if that were true, they'd be telling my female co-workers to cut their hair too. They let two of them wear ponytails out the pack of their hats, and one of them wore her hair in a bun. My manager merely replied by saying,
"Yeah. They're women. Get a haircut."
To this day I find this memory infuriating. What the hell does gender have to do with this? Everyone has hair. The fact of the matter is that they're human beings with hair, just like me, and they're allowed to wear their hair long. And for some stupid arbitrary reason, I'm not.
So I didn't get a haircut. Instead, I stuffed my hair into my hat as best I could every day. This irritated that manager, but he couldn't order me to cut my hair if my hair was not sticking out of my hat whenever I was clocked in. I was jealous of my female co-workers, who had these wonderful ponytails out the back of their hats. I felt like it was completely unfair that I couldn't do the same thing. I wanted a ponytail, but because I had to stuff my hair into my hat, I wasn't able to grow it long enough to get one.
Misgendering
This was the first transgender person I had ever knowingly seen in real life. This was before I knew the word transgender, and the only word I knew that fit the description was transvestite, which is a derogatory word the trans community really doesn't like, myself included. Most trans people consider it to be a slur, so I'm very glad I didn't say it that day.
So this customer was being served by my boss in the deli, while I was in the separate Chinese food section. My boss never serves people food, so this seemed particularly interesting to me. I figured he probably intended to serve her himself because he was gay, and felt that maybe he'd do a better job? I glanced up at the trans person, from time to time, out of curiosity. I wanted to talk to her for some reason, but I felt it'd be rude of me, and it'd just make us both uncomfortable. So I just continued to do my job while overhearing tiny pieces of what they were saying to each other.
At some point, I heard this exchange:
The customer stormed out of the store, and when I looked up I saw tears welling up in her eyes before she made it out the door.
The cook and I looked at each other for a moment, I looked back over at my boss, who had a look of guilt and fear on his face. The head cook chuckled to himself saying something along the lines of, "Heh, wow. Dramatic..." To keep up appearances, I pretended to let out a little chuckle of my own and said, "Heh, yeah."
But I felt bad for her. She was visibly hurt and upset, and laughing at someone for being upset felt wrong. I didn't understand why she wore a dress, but I at least understood that I shouldn't be laughing at someone for crying. My supervisor's commentary made me feel rather uncomfortable.
Nobody ever spoke of that situation again, but it's a memory that stuck in my mind. As a trans woman now, thinking back at this memory, I feel so bad for her. She must have felt so terribly alone, and that misgendering must have just been the last straw after an awful stream of misgendering. If anything like this ever happened again, I'm glad I'm in a better position to help now.
One other memory from this job that stuck in my mind is a short exchange between me and that same cook at the beginning of my shift one day. He always used to say, "You 'da man!" Or he'd just generally call me "'Da man." It took a little getting used to hearing that from a Cantonese accent.
I came into the dish pit at the beginning of my shift one day, and I started throwing things into the scrubbing area and filling it with water. I made a lot of noise back there because of how quickly I worked. The cook comes into the back and says,
In response, I do a quick fist pump and say,
He erupts in laugher, and I'm sitting there utterly confused at what just happened. I stop scrubbing and just stare at him, quite puzzled. He walked away, still laughing, nodding at me and putting his hand up in a half wave motion.
I figure at this point that he must've thought my reaction was really funny for some reason, and that he's just a strange guy. I continue doing the dishes for about 10 minutes until the cook walks back into the dish pit and says something.
I couldn't quite make out what he said, so I stopped and asked him to repeat it. He repeated it, but I still had no idea what he said. I thought maybe his accent was just making it hard to make out.
His expression turns from laughter to straight, and then confusion, as he asks,
He starts laughing again,
He continues to laugh, seeming reluctant to tell me what I said.
So he explains to me that he called me "'Da man," and I replied by saying "No chance." Basically, how that got interpreted was that he called me a man, and I denied it. And the specific dialect I spoke in was Cantonese.
So, basically, I accidentally told my supervisor in Cantonese that I was a woman about 3 years before I actually started questioning my gender.
"How about this one, sir?"
"I AM A WOMAN!"
The customer stormed out of the store, and when I looked up I saw tears welling up in her eyes before she made it out the door.
The cook and I looked at each other for a moment, I looked back over at my boss, who had a look of guilt and fear on his face. The head cook chuckled to himself saying something along the lines of, "Heh, wow. Dramatic..." To keep up appearances, I pretended to let out a little chuckle of my own and said, "Heh, yeah."
But I felt bad for her. She was visibly hurt and upset, and laughing at someone for being upset felt wrong. I didn't understand why she wore a dress, but I at least understood that I shouldn't be laughing at someone for crying. My supervisor's commentary made me feel rather uncomfortable.
Nobody ever spoke of that situation again, but it's a memory that stuck in my mind. As a trans woman now, thinking back at this memory, I feel so bad for her. She must have felt so terribly alone, and that misgendering must have just been the last straw after an awful stream of misgendering. If anything like this ever happened again, I'm glad I'm in a better position to help now.
That Time I Spoke Chinese
I came into the dish pit at the beginning of my shift one day, and I started throwing things into the scrubbing area and filling it with water. I made a lot of noise back there because of how quickly I worked. The cook comes into the back and says,
"Hey, [old name]! 'Da man!"
In response, I do a quick fist pump and say,
"Boohah!"
He erupts in laugher, and I'm sitting there utterly confused at what just happened. I stop scrubbing and just stare at him, quite puzzled. He walked away, still laughing, nodding at me and putting his hand up in a half wave motion.
I figure at this point that he must've thought my reaction was really funny for some reason, and that he's just a strange guy. I continue doing the dishes for about 10 minutes until the cook walks back into the dish pit and says something.
I couldn't quite make out what he said, so I stopped and asked him to repeat it. He repeated it, but I still had no idea what he said. I thought maybe his accent was just making it hard to make out.
"I'm sorry, what? I still didn't catch it."
His expression turns from laughter to straight, and then confusion, as he asks,
"Wait... You speak Chinese?"
"No, I don't. Why? Did I say something in Chinese?"
He starts laughing again,
"You spoke Chinese!"
"What? I just said boohah! What does that mean?!"
He continues to laugh, seeming reluctant to tell me what I said.
"No, come on, what did I say??"
"You said boohah. Means 'no chance.'"
So he explains to me that he called me "'Da man," and I replied by saying "No chance." Basically, how that got interpreted was that he called me a man, and I denied it. And the specific dialect I spoke in was Cantonese.
So, basically, I accidentally told my supervisor in Cantonese that I was a woman about 3 years before I actually started questioning my gender.
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