Work speech.

I wanted to make this available for whomever it helps; feel free to make use it for your own speech/letter. Also, if anyone reading wishes to post this on a trans support site as a sample you are welcome to do so. I read this statement in two meetings with coworkers; the format was that a manager - my immediate supervisor for the meeting with my department and a senior manager for the larger meeting within my division - stated that I had an announcement, I read this, then I departed the meeting and management and HR did their thing, including passing out a handout about terminology and reinforcing that gender identity and gender expression are enumerated in my employer's non-discrimination guides. My employer is a large university and I work in their IT department. That department has most of 500 employees total. Even though several people had transitioned while employed by this university over the previous fifteen years there were no policies and nobody in HR had anything from the prior transitions. For the most part, how my transition was handled at work was at my direction, so it became very important for me to advocate for myself; a skill I had to learn. HR and senior management's presence was also at my request, owing to articles I had read identifying the visible support shown by their presence as positive factors in a successful workplace transition.



I am a transgender person who is transitioning from male to female. I am currently addressing a part known as social transition, which means I will be living my life fully as a woman, which includes at work. On [date] this transition at [work division] will be effective. As of that point I will no longer be known as [old name] or [nickname] in any part of my life and will be [name]. I will use female pronouns - she, her, and hers.

I understand this will mean an adjustment for you and that, as a result, mistakes will happen in spite of your best efforts; we’re all human and it takes us a bit of time to adjust to changes like this. If you make a mistake, such as using a male pronoun for me, the best thing to do at the time is to try not to overly draw attention to it; simply continue and try to use the correct term again.

I also realize many of you will have a number of questions arising from curiosity about what to you is likely something new. While I generally do not mind them, I ask that you understand a few points. First, my goal is to have this be as minimally disruptive as possible, and being asked a number of questions during the work day by multiple people, no matter how honestly well meant, will not help in accomplishing that goal. Second, there are many questions which I will not be comfortable answering as they concern matters that are intensely personal or involve private medical information, such as my own plans for or history of treatment. Finally, it’s easy to get overly focused on the past; I’m far more interested in the present and future.

Following this you will have an opportunity to discuss with HR and management representatives without me present. I understand that it is often more comfortable for people to ask certain questions in such an environment rather than with me present.

I know that we are all professionals and I have complete faith in our ability to handle this workplace transition in a professional manner, as has previously been demonstrated at [employer].

On moving on.

I had some discussions recently about what it means to me to move on after transition. It’s a tough one to define; having both components of what it does and does not mean. This is my attempt to do so, hampered more by my ever-increasing desire to not have my mind in transition matters - I began writing this weeks ago and quickly ran out of steam to finish it; I pushed myself tonight so I can be done with it as I both felt it something I needed to do but also didn't want to deal with it anymore.

It does not mean I’ll cut ties with everyone I knew before transition (though I did cut some; mostly ones with whom there was little bond,) nor that I’ll leave those I know who are going through transition. Many such people are ones I consider friends and I have no desire to lose them; losing them would be something I expect I would find painful. But the reason I would feel that way is because there is some form of bond beyond having transition in common.

If someone at work were to contact me about my experiences transitioning there because they were trying to figure out how to do so themselves then I would gladly meet with them, just as a woman who transitioned years ago did for me.

It means I won’t generally be bringing it up in conversation, not because I wish to hide it, feel ashamed of it, or anything of the sort, but because it typically isn’t germane. It’s a fact of my past, but I view it as a rather uninteresting fact of my past, and hopefully ranking high amongst least interesting facts about me. It does mean it’s not something I intent to broadcast about myself. I’ll not be writing about it in places that are really easy to connect to me, i.e. on anything on my vanity-domain, because I have no desire to have that become the notable fact about me.

I do believe in giving back to the community. I have done so and have some more contributions to make. I’ve made what information I have, mostly the short speeches and letters for family and coworkers, available to others because they go a very different direction than others I found; a direction that is, in my opinion, very much more positive. I’ll be part of a WPATH presentation this year about a wonderful resource for trans women, too.

Beyond that, I don’t feel there is much value I can bring because everything else is very much experiences specific to myself and my own situation. I don’t have any blindingly-brilliant insights to pass along, and even my actual transition story isn’t very interesting; the most interesting part, a weekend in December, is only so because it demonstrated that I was wrong about some things I had believed. I also don’t feel that, for myself, those communities are a good place to remain long-term, mostly because of what I’ve seen of many who do - it’s not pleasant and I very much don’t want to become that sort of person who is still mentally invested in transition even though otherwise they’re years past it. I did that for many years with one aspect of my past and will not let it happen again.

My therapist repeatedly asked me, “what does transition mean to you?” I honestly got so sick of the question and I felt unable to answer it. I see now that the reason was that I was trying to find some deeper meaning within transition, which was wrong. In reality, for me transition was merely a means to an end, and, increasingly, I have a sense that I have reached that end.