Mike and Michelle: A Trans-gender in the Workplace
Posted: Thursday, July 28, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
Michelle is our administrative assistant. She’s worked here for over twenty years. She’s bright and competent at her job, which includes answering the telephone, typing up purchase orders, up-dating files and miscellaneous computer date entry chores. Her knowledge of computers is extensive. She has a small repair business that she runs from her apartment and is frequently called on to troubleshoot the company machines. Michelle has no friends at work. Other employees mock her and make rude comments about her behind her back. Until about five years ago, Michelle was Mike. She is a post-surgery trans-gender.
Since a few of the guys at work knew his family, Mike thought it was best to ‘come clean’ with his employer, too. Mike informed the general manager of his situation and requested that, from now on, he be called Michelle and be considered a woman. He began coming to work dressed as one. A staff meeting was called and all the supervisors were informed. There was a review of federal, state and company harassment policies. Suggestions and recommendations for how to handle the situation were discussed.
Here, hourly employees are represented by a union. The main work force is all men. The billing office is staffed by women. The union stewards were called in for a meeting with the general manager and asked to discuss the situation with the employees. The female office manager ‘broke the news’ to the girls up-front. Harassment would not be tolerated. Needless to say, the entire place was in an uproar for quite some time. Mike, who was a rather popular guy, soon found himself isolated and spurned.
Details of the conversion procedures can be found elsewhere. It is an expensive process. Michelle was required to sell her house and her hunting cabin in the mountains as part of the equitable divorce settlement. She moved into an apartment with another trans-gender. She began the hormone treatments, and since Mike had had a receding hairline, she had follicles transplanted from the back of her neck to her forehead. She grew her hair long and combed it over.
There were a few embarrassing occurrences for Michelle as she gradually made the change. As a holder of a commercial driver’s license she was in a mandatory random drug testing program. One month she was selected and reported to the testing center. She no longer looked like the photograph of Mike on her driver’s license and was sent away as an imposter. The boss had to call the center and explain the situation so she could satisfy the state's requirement.
Michelle was, of course, no longer permitted to use the men’s locker room or rest rooms. The women in the front office raised a stink at the prospect of her using their facilities. The company, rendering reasonable accommodation, constructed a special locker room/rest room facility to be used only by Michelle. It is her own private, little corner in the work place separated and isolated from everyone else. The guys assigned to build it made jokes about putting in peep holes, but of course, they didn’t.
As was required by her psychological councilor, Michelle lived as a woman for over a year. Over that time she officially changed her name and acquired breast implants that were closely scrutinized and commented on by half the guys in the plant. She and her roommate became active in various gay, lesbian and trans-gender organizations. She saved up money and finally scheduled a trip to Trinidad, Colorado where one of the world’s foremost sex change surgical hospitals is located. She took a month long leave of absence from work.
When she returned, she was psychologically and physiologically Michelle. They had shaved her Adam’s apple, did some adjustment surgery on her breasts and “changed the plumbing” as many of the guys called it. She didn’t look much different than she did before she went to Colorado, but many of the guys speculated and talked about it, wondering if she "looked real.”
Now that the process was permanent, many of the guys (and girls), were horrified and angry. Some could not accept it and pretended that Michelle was invisible, spoke or interacted with her only when it was required. Derogatory and disgusting comments were sometimes made, but as long as Michelle did not hear them and was not harassed, it was an expression of freedom of speech and opinion that could not be inhibited.
I must admit that I have cringed at the thought of what she has done more than once. I confess that I have joined in the banter and made inappropriate comments myself. But, most frequently, I have put myself in Mike’s shoes, then in Michelle’s shoes. I have tried to appreciate what she has gone through. I have thought about the isolation and ridicule she has suffered. I’ve tried to appreciate the psychological stress that must have led her to make the choices she has made and the stress she must still be under.
Michelle is an adequate administrative assistant. She will finish her career and retire from here. I speak with her and 'work' with her every day. Mike was my friend and co-worker. Michelle is too. I cannot but treat her with the respect any other person deserves. I would not want to be her, but I’m sure she would not want to be me, either.
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