The draining agony of “show, don’t tell”

It’s not quite “stealth”, because there’s nothing stealthy about it, but I need more.

I read this thread with interest. 

To me, it helped articulate the internal conflict between being trans and being a focused career animal, and the question of how to put those thoughts on the same page. It shouldn't be necessary to put our career ambitions on-hold in order to transition.

Those of us living in the privileged west live in a world where trans rights are more or less treated as a privilege, something that is either there or not there depending on the people who have been elected at that time. Even when people in power say they believe in trans rights, often the exact amount they do to demonstrate that belief will be limited. 

The reason I mention this is because many trans people who have to operate in a workplace have learned to develop a sixth sense for how much they’re willing to compromise their own comfort in order to maintain a place on the career ladder and have some job security. No point in becoming your company’s LGBTQ+ group lead, if the next government that comes in is going to declare “war on DEI” and rules or laws might change, is the thought.

The lack of LGBTQ+ speech protection in the labour laws of many countries has led to a situation where trans people take their comfort and their careers in their own hands when they discuss those issues with their colleagues and managers.

There are several solutions to this crisis of faith in institutions and basic governance, though none of them are satisfactory to everyone. 

This Slate Outward podcast (play from 31 minutes for the relevant bit) features host Jules Gill-Peterson articulating the view that we shouldn't even be aiming to be our true selves at work, because businesses are not inherently worthy of trust, and policies can change. Though I was shocked to hear the view at first, I think it's at least worth taking it on board.

What are possible solutions?

A solution, though not one that will be helpful to most people, is just to go totally stealth. Don’t talk about your trans personal life ever, don’t wear anything that might give the game away, use the pronouns your work colleagues seem to assign you anyway. I’m sure you don’t need me to explain the problem with this; you’re dysphoric, they don’t see the problem, and nobody does any growing, learning, or moving forward, to use random language from Netflix reality dating shows. 

The second solution is to put it all out there. Make an announcement on the company message board, tell your stakeholders in an email, and live your truth. But as that ‘Outward’ podcast mentioned, your workplace is not your friendship group, it’s not your family, and although it might make you happy - and for some people it might be essential to their mental health, if you’re coming out when older, you might find yourself having to withstand a lot of change to your status and to your career progression as a result. 

Which brings me onto what I had chosen up to now - what I called “show, don’t tell”. To me it means I’m dressing according to my preferred gender, but I’m not wearing makeup (fine, not all cis women do either), and I’m identifying as nonbinary. Given the amount of discussion that seems to have raised among both friends and colleagues, I’m questioning that choice. 

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It wasn’t until I started a vacation period that I realised how much I’d been dragging myself down with pressure. Not all of it was due to my gender presentation choices, but the daily strain, and the burden of correcting people - it made me feel that, by opting for a compromise that suited no-one, I wasn’t making them happy, and I wasn’t making myself happy either. 

I love my workplace. I think it’s a truly fulfilling place to be. The issue is that the battle between my “authentic self” and the self I have created in order to be acceptable to a broader group of people is draining mental energy I ought to be spending on bigger challenges. It’s causing me to feel like the guilty party, when actually I’ve done nothing wrong. More than anything, it’s telling people I have doubts, or that I'm not committed to myself and to where I feel like I'm going. 

Who my “authentic self” is, and whether that might change in the future, are points for discussion, and I think that’s why I still really need therapy. Even so, there’s a lot I can do to stand up for myself that will make me happier in the long term, even if I have to deal with negativity early-on. Maybe in trying to protect myself from the worst-case scenario - being rejected by everyone - I’ve created an alternative that isn’t much better. Time to try a new approach.