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So one of the "perks" that came with my transition to a salaried title earlier this year is that I am on the invite list for the (theoretically monthly, realistically quarterly) Leadership Team Meeting - essentially everyone in the building with a specific list of job titles. We had one this morning.
I groaned internally; I had to come in an hour earlier than I usually do.
I groaned internally again; one item on the agenda was a discussion of the employee handbook with a representative from human resources.
I groaned internally a third time; the representative from human resources began her presentation with "I'm going to count you off into 1's and 2's, and each team is going to get a scenario to roleplay through."
And yet this might have been one of the best meetings I've ever sat through. The thing was, the scenarios were... interesting? complicated? thought-provoking? led to good enough discussion that we only got through about half of them? What do you do when two employees have legally protected rights that are coming into conflict? Now that The Wacky Weed is legal in this state, but we still have a zero-tolerance policy at work (it's treated the same as alcohol - do what you like on your own time, but if you show up for work under the influence you'd better have your union rep on speed dial), what do you do when someone comes in with a lingering odor but not apparently impaired? What about when someone's disability (in this case depression) is interfering with their job performance?
And the one that blew my mind that it was talked about at all: "Kevin has begun transition, and now wants to be called Kelsie and addressed with she/her pronouns. Kelsie uses the multi-stall women's rest room in her work area, and occasionally compliments other women on their hair and asks, for example, about their favorite places to buy pretty undergarments. Several other women who work in the area have come to your office insisting that 'Kevin' be required to use the unisex bathroom (one seat, locking door) until 'he' completes reassignment surgery. What's the appropriate response?"
And I was pleased that, in a room of roughly 30 people, mostly "good Christians", there was only one insisting that, "naw, man, he's a dude, he can use the men's room," and everyone else was at least willing to use the proper name and pronouns? HR Rep seemed to think that, yes, it would be valid to require Kelsie to use the unisex bathroom (I disagree, nobody else is banned from the multistall bathroom) but the discussion came around to "is the problem that Kelsie is in there peeing, or that she's asking her colleagues about their underwear?" and also general ideas of how to handle trans people in our workplace (the consensus was that if we're going to have one-seat bathrooms with locking external doors it's unnecessary to gender them even if there are two right next to each other, and nobody wanted to tackle 'what about in the locker room'....) As someone noted, we haven't had this come up in the past, but it's a matter of time...
I'm relieved that the amount of transphobia came up was... minimal, and at least one non-ally revealed himself. And if nothing else HR Rep was unwaveringly firm that "Kelsie" and "she" were the right way to identify the trans person in the scenario, that was not up for debate, so the organization is likely to be supportive.
I groaned internally; I had to come in an hour earlier than I usually do.
I groaned internally again; one item on the agenda was a discussion of the employee handbook with a representative from human resources.
I groaned internally a third time; the representative from human resources began her presentation with "I'm going to count you off into 1's and 2's, and each team is going to get a scenario to roleplay through."
And yet this might have been one of the best meetings I've ever sat through. The thing was, the scenarios were... interesting? complicated? thought-provoking? led to good enough discussion that we only got through about half of them? What do you do when two employees have legally protected rights that are coming into conflict? Now that The Wacky Weed is legal in this state, but we still have a zero-tolerance policy at work (it's treated the same as alcohol - do what you like on your own time, but if you show up for work under the influence you'd better have your union rep on speed dial), what do you do when someone comes in with a lingering odor but not apparently impaired? What about when someone's disability (in this case depression) is interfering with their job performance?
And the one that blew my mind that it was talked about at all: "Kevin has begun transition, and now wants to be called Kelsie and addressed with she/her pronouns. Kelsie uses the multi-stall women's rest room in her work area, and occasionally compliments other women on their hair and asks, for example, about their favorite places to buy pretty undergarments. Several other women who work in the area have come to your office insisting that 'Kevin' be required to use the unisex bathroom (one seat, locking door) until 'he' completes reassignment surgery. What's the appropriate response?"
And I was pleased that, in a room of roughly 30 people, mostly "good Christians", there was only one insisting that, "naw, man, he's a dude, he can use the men's room," and everyone else was at least willing to use the proper name and pronouns? HR Rep seemed to think that, yes, it would be valid to require Kelsie to use the unisex bathroom (I disagree, nobody else is banned from the multistall bathroom) but the discussion came around to "is the problem that Kelsie is in there peeing, or that she's asking her colleagues about their underwear?" and also general ideas of how to handle trans people in our workplace (the consensus was that if we're going to have one-seat bathrooms with locking external doors it's unnecessary to gender them even if there are two right next to each other, and nobody wanted to tackle 'what about in the locker room'....) As someone noted, we haven't had this come up in the past, but it's a matter of time...
I'm relieved that the amount of transphobia came up was... minimal, and at least one non-ally revealed himself. And if nothing else HR Rep was unwaveringly firm that "Kelsie" and "she" were the right way to identify the trans person in the scenario, that was not up for debate, so the organization is likely to be supportive.
