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My annual political post
Nov. 6th, 2012 07:55 amI don't often get political here; this is my exception. I feel that the results of today's election are more important to me than I have for any past election. I realize this is a bit verbose; if you want to understand a bit more about me, please do read this.
The past four years have held amazing amounts of change for me. Things I could only begin to imagine possible - an future so incredible that I was just starting to see what could be - have come to be reality in my life. Granted, a lot of this is in my private life, but significant aspects are from policies that have come under this administration.
One policy change in particular had a quick, positive, and direct impact on me. In the early fall of 2011, there was a change in the employment eligibility verification system: the gender field, which had been optional for a number of years, was no longer accepted. While this might seem small, even insignificant, to most, it was far from that for me. This was a common way for a discrimination against trans people to happen; due to various laws and policies, many of us have periods where our lived gender - the one in which we live and interact with the world, and are viewed by others - does not match the one that government(s) consider us. I am no exception to that. If the employer entered a gender marker that did not match the one on record for the employee a "gender no match" letter was generated, notifying the employer of this. While I never experienced this, I know people who have, and the experiences they had were across the range of possibilities.
Less than two weeks after that policy change was in effect I was contacted by a recruiter for my current job, and I had already been planning to change jobs. I don't think there's any way I can fully express the relief I felt, knowing that I wouldn't have to face having that job taken away from me a few days into it, or a confrontation, which may not be handed with proper decorum, because of that letter.
I'll wager that many of you never give that process a second thought. Please try to understand what it is to have had to be so very aware of it and know that it could be used against me in a way that had nothing to do with its designed purpose, and then to have that institutional oppression removed from my life.
The past four years have held amazing amounts of change for me. Things I could only begin to imagine possible - an future so incredible that I was just starting to see what could be - have come to be reality in my life. Granted, a lot of this is in my private life, but significant aspects are from policies that have come under this administration.
One policy change in particular had a quick, positive, and direct impact on me. In the early fall of 2011, there was a change in the employment eligibility verification system: the gender field, which had been optional for a number of years, was no longer accepted. While this might seem small, even insignificant, to most, it was far from that for me. This was a common way for a discrimination against trans people to happen; due to various laws and policies, many of us have periods where our lived gender - the one in which we live and interact with the world, and are viewed by others - does not match the one that government(s) consider us. I am no exception to that. If the employer entered a gender marker that did not match the one on record for the employee a "gender no match" letter was generated, notifying the employer of this. While I never experienced this, I know people who have, and the experiences they had were across the range of possibilities.
Less than two weeks after that policy change was in effect I was contacted by a recruiter for my current job, and I had already been planning to change jobs. I don't think there's any way I can fully express the relief I felt, knowing that I wouldn't have to face having that job taken away from me a few days into it, or a confrontation, which may not be handed with proper decorum, because of that letter.
I'll wager that many of you never give that process a second thought. Please try to understand what it is to have had to be so very aware of it and know that it could be used against me in a way that had nothing to do with its designed purpose, and then to have that institutional oppression removed from my life.
