Gender at work

[Ninja_2009]

I've recently come to the realization that I am bi-gender and while having a word/description for what I am is great, it doesn't really help with (what I'm calling) gender lable dysphoria. I am biologically female, and I look it. The problem is that when I'm having a "guy day" and people refer to me as she/her, by my birth name(Chantel), or outright say "Hey Girl!" it makes me super uncomfortable. I don't mind it so much from customers, because it doesn't matter if they do or not. With my coworkers though, I kind of want to tell them, "hey guys! Im bi-gender and I'm on a guy day! Call me((insert guy name)leaning towards Shane or Shawn)." But at the same time that might be a bad idea??? Super confused.

[S.Kobold]

I'm out at work. I look female, and people tend to use female pronouns for me. But I've drawn the line at being called girl or woman etc. by colleague.

I started a new job a few months after coming out to friends and family. I introduced myself as my current name and have been very open with people.

Don't come out if you don't like questions. Don't expect people to get it straight away. Be patient.

I find I'm gendered most often by customers. I find that particularly jarring.

[UncommonNonsense]

Tough one. So much depends on your workplace's culture, where your workplace is located, the industry you're working in, the general feeling in your country/state/province/city towards LGBT+ rights, and whether or not your supervisor will support you and defend you.

So, how supportive are your coworkers and your boss towards LGBT+ rights? Are negative comments ever said about customers who appear obviously gay? Has anyone ever said a bigoted comment? When LGBT+ rights and trans rights have been in the news, has anyone reacted badly? Has any bigoted comment/joke/etc. ever come from your boss or the owner of the business in which you work? If anything like that has ever happened, be very cautious. But if some of your coworkers are open about being gay/lesbian/bi/etc and haven't faced anything all that negative at work, you should be ok.

As we all sadly know, some places are more accepting than others, and some places are terribly backwards (North Carolina as a prime example!). If you live in an area where conservative religiosity is a big influence, where many people are insular, not as well educated, and fearful of change, or in a small town in a generally conservative area, I wouldn't even try. You'd be putting your job and maybe even your physical safety at risk. But if you live in a larger city, if you live in a more progressive, secular, liberal area where the educational and income level of the population is fairly high, I think you'd be ok to approach your boss and coworkers about your wishes.

I guess I'm just trying to say 'be cautious'. You know better than any of us what your city and your workplace is like, but I'd advise really watching and listening to your coworkers and boss and really trying to determine how they feel about other peoples' differences before telling them about your dysphoria.
Whatever you decide, know that I'm on your side and you've got support from my corner.

[dissolved]

There's the possibility of choosing a gender neutral name, and then gently pushing people in the pronoun direction you want.

I don't think your average person understands bi gender do they? Will they assume you mean you have multiple personalities or something? I certainly don't envy your situation :D

[Ninja_2009]

Tough one. So much depends on your workplace's culture, where your workplace is located, the industry you're working in, the general feeling in your country/state/province/city towards LGBT+ rights, and whether or not your supervisor will support you and defend you.

So, how supportive are your coworkers and your boss towards LGBT+ rights? Are negative comments ever said about customers who appear obviously gay? Has anyone ever said a bigoted comment? When LGBT+ rights and trans rights have been in the news, has anyone reacted badly? Has any bigoted comment/joke/etc. ever come from your boss or the owner of the business in which you work? If anything like that has ever happened, be very cautious. But if some of your coworkers are open about being gay/lesbian/bi/etc and haven't faced anything all that negative at work, you should be ok.

As we all sadly know, some places are more accepting than others, and some places are terribly backwards (North Carolina as a prime example!). If you live in an area where conservative religiosity is a big influence, where many people are insular, not as well educated, and fearful of change, or in a small town in a generally conservative area, I wouldn't even try. You'd be putting your job and maybe even your physical safety at risk. But if you live in a larger city, if you live in a more progressive, secular, liberal area where the educational and income level of the population is fairly high, I think you'd be ok to approach your boss and coworkers about your wishes.

I guess I'm just trying to say 'be cautious'. You know better than any of us what your city and your workplace is like, but I'd advise really watching and listening to your coworkers and boss and really trying to determine how they feel about other peoples' differences before telling them about your dysphoria.

Whatever you decide, know that I'm on your side and you've got support from my corner.

I work two jobs almost on a daily basis. At one of them I have never seen anyone who identifies as Non-binary, though there have been several openly gay guys, so I guess what I mean is that have no idea how the owner will react. I guess I can start by talking to the store managers and see what they say? At the other job, Im good friends with my store manager outside of work, so im not really worried about him. The rest of the people I work with there are all pretty accepting as far as I've witnessed. :)

There's the possibility of choosing a gender neutral name, and then gently pushing people in the pronoun direction you want.

I don't think your average person understands bi gender do they? Will they assume you mean you have multiple personalities or something? I certainly don't envy your situation :D

I had never heard of Bi-gender until i started trying to figure out how to describe myself. As far as the gender neutral name, i was liking Shawn for that reason, it can go either way and it sounds similar to my birth name, but at the same time it reminds me of my very masculine cousin... and when I started thinking about names, Shane popped into my head and wont go away..... IDk I'll have to look into it more before i decide of course. :)

[Busrider]

I certainly don't envy your situation :D

Agreed.

I never reached the pronouns and stuff stage, but I really don't want to waste myself in the "big strong guy" field. - I'm an unisex and thats all.

Anyhow: How might your coworkers take your wish about "guy day" acceptance? - I'd be bratty, hoard nasty cucumber glasses in my locker and share one during "guy day"'s lunch break, of course with you having the honor to struggle with the lid. <- I guess your work place contains more "male & muscles" nastiness that 'll hit you anyway...

I'm also concerned that the genderfluidness might earn you "it" as your pronoun. <- I might be off though since English isn't my native language.

UncommonNonsense above is a wise & experienced person and I can only recommend taking all concerns listed in that posting very serious.

[Heart]

Some bigender and genderlfuid people I know use what they call a "gender token". For example; they might wear a wrist band that is pink on their woman days, and blue on their man days. The colour of the wrist band tells their friends and co-workers, and anyone they've already told their gender too, which pronouns and name to use that day. Would something like that work for you? This is of course assuming you decide to come out to your co-workers, which is a decision that ultimately only you can make.

[Kalz]

Heart's idea seems pretty neat, as long as you could get co-workers on board with it.

The main thing that I'd advise is patience and caution, should you choose to make it known to them; gender identity can be a pretty confusing concept for someone who has never had to think about gender. That confusion can (from what I've seen) lead to avoidance, because they don't know the social conventions surrounding differing gender identities. I can see a few different strategies working, so long as you give them the time and information that they need to figure out their approach to the situation.

[Ninja_2009]

A gender token is a good idea... I'll have to think about that. I think I'm going to wait a little bit before coming out at work... Test the waters, so to speak.

I came out to friends and family though, through Facebook (because I'm a big chicken, and couldn't figure out how to bring it up) so I'm still getting responses from that, so I might try a gender token with them and see what happens. I haven't told anyone my guy name yet either, so I might post something else about that.

Thanks everyone for your input!!! :)

[Heart]

The nice thing about a gender token is that it can be super subtle, and it doesn't have to out you to people who don't know about it, but it helps for the people that do ;)

[Ninja_2009]

My manager at one of my jobs is awesome, and I'm glad to have him as a friend. I covered someone else's shift tonight, and didn't have any of my guy clothes available to wear today(nothing formal anyway, which is required for this job), so I was feeling really dysphoric about my chest, to the point where I wasnt as responsive or animated as I normally am. He was like, "seriously Dude, what's wrong with you?!" So I wound up telling him about my bi-gender status, right there in the middle of the sales floor. I already made my gender tokens, and explained that to him. He asked if I would prefer to be called Shane of course I responded positively, but I also told him that if he needs to ask me which pronouns I perfer, that would be fine with me. He looked me dead in the eye and said "why would I need to ask? Now that I know about that, I'll be looking for it(the token).He said that it didn't matter to him, that im bi-gender, because he thinks I'm an awesome person regardless.

Then he said a while later that he would look into whether or not there is a policy preventing me from having two different name tags(of his own accord), and then apologized for not being able to call me Shane today because it would just confuse everybody (staff and customer alike). The whole conversation was really awkward, but it went so well!!

So glad he's my friend :)

[Ninja_2009]

My manager at one of my jobs is awesome, and I'm glad to have him as a friend. I covered someone else's shift tonight, and didn't have any of my guy clothes available to wear today(nothing formal anyway, which is required for this job), so I was feeling really dysphoric about my chest, to the point where I wasnt as responsive or animated as I normally am. He was like, "seriously Dude, what's wrong with you?!" So I wound up telling him about my bi-gender status, right there in the middle of the sales floor. I already made my gender tokens, and explained that to him. He asked if I would prefer to be called Shane of course I responded positively, but I also told him that if he needs to ask me which pronouns I perfer, that would be fine with me. He looked me dead in the eye and said "why would I need to ask? Now that I know about that, I'll be looking for it(the token).He said that it didn't matter to him, that im bi-gender, because he thinks I'm an awesome person regardless.

Then he said a while later that he would look into whether or not there is a policy preventing me from having two different name tags(of his own accord), and then apologized for not being able to call me Shane today because it would just confuse everybody (staff and customer alike). The whole conversation was really awkward, but it went so well!!

So glad he's my friend :)

[UncommonNonsense]

**does happy dance**

I love it when I hear about such excellent, amazing, positive reactions, especially when shit like what is going on in North Carolina is happening. Things like this give me hope for humanity. Apart from that, I'm just so glad that this went so wonderfully for you.

Absolutely awesome all around.

[Ninja_2009]

There's definitely a level of warm fuzzies that is unexplainable,when I see both of my names on the daily workboard.