I've been very busy the past couple of months since I found part-time employment and for the most part it has been good. I started out being in the closet but soon learned that the work environment was more open and tolerant than I had expected and so I started coming to work as myself meaning in female mode. Management has been accepting all in all with an occasional slip where I am referred to by a masculine pronoun or title and I have been patient with them correcting them gentlely, but some my coworkers have been less than supportive. I have been told of gossip about me and women having an issue with my using the ladies restroom, but again I have tried to be tolerant and have not lashed out in any way. Yesterday however I almost lost it when I was told by my manager that someone had complained that I had been involved in an inappropriate conversation with a male coworker. I had simply asked him "what he liked" not being specific in any way but he understood the implication and replied that while he didn't talk about such things he was "trisexual", a term I don't understand and that he was in a relationship. I didn't press him about what trisexual meant and that if things didn't work out in the relationship to let me know. He thanked me and I said your welcome and that was it. He smiled during our brief exchange and seemed genuinely flattered by my attention. I am pretty sure that he is not the one who initiated the complaint because of things he had said to me previously and I have ruled out another coworker who was not far away as the one who started the mess. There was no one else nearby that I could see, but it is possible that someone could have been in an adjacent aisle and may have overheard our conversation. I was very upset by this complaint because it is not against company policy to fraternize with coworkers and I said nothing that could have been taken as lewd, vulgar,sexual or offensive. I view the conversation as harmless and no one's business but mine and the guy I was talking to. This complaint strikes me as petty, possibly vindictive, malicious,ridiculous and an attempt to make my life at work miserable. I have had many jobs in my lifetime and this is the only one where I have had people talking about me behind my back. I always get along with my coworkers and generally had friends among them. I can only conclude that I am being treated differently here because I have come out as transsexual. Hopefully things won't get worse as I intend to stay on this job.
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3:19 am Thursday, 8th December, 2011
I don't know how the law is framed in the US, but here in the UK it is against the law to discriminate on the grounds of race, creed, colour, age, gender or sexuality. That said there are still some people who seem to make it their life's work to make things uncomfortable for anyone they perceive as being different, and no amount of laws will ever change them.
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