In my workplace, a manager coming to your desk and telling you to sign out to meeting after you finish your call is normally a good sign that discipline is coming down. It’s not something you normally want to hear.

However, in my case… I’m ready to have my own meeting. The classic “Come to Jesus” meeting, so to speak. I’ve touched on this issue before, but never really going into depth about it. My problem is that despite having transitioned in early 2015, with 17 months full time on the job, the people I work with and for still can’t seem to get it right.  I was out of the office today on union business, but on Monday alone, I was misgendered by 3 different people. One member of management and two craft employees. (Note: I started this draft last week.)

Since coming out, I’ve had a number of issues within the office. I’ve taken the worst of them to human resources as well as our ethics complaint line. The complaints were for harassment, discrimination and retaliation. However, there’s always been a concern of how these claims were dealt with. Due to confidentiality regulations, I could never be debriefed on the actual disposition of my complaint. I could make an assumption, but there’d be no real closure. I feel like it’s a major transparency issue for the company.

Despite it all, it’s still continuing. It doesn’t really seem to be improving. I’ve repeatedly asked human resources to transfer me into another workcenter where I can go stealth and no one would need know about my gender identity. This would allow me to leave that lingering residue of my old identity behind. I’ve requested it from my ERM (Employee Resource Manager), my first level supervisor as well as my second level manager. I’ve made requests through the union and they’ve approached management regarding it. No one has ever said “No.” It’s always that they’re waiting on an answer from someone else. Who this person might be is a mystery to me.

So my “Come to Jesus” meeting is really quite simple. My feelings are that the company has not taken the appropriate actions to curb the microaggressions and misgendering within the workcenter. Nor have they moved me out of the workcenter. They’ve failed to hold up their own policies. They have failed to take reasonable measures to protect me, so that I can do my job.

Both of these things are well within the means of the company. They don’t place any undue burden or hardship on the company. They do not hinder the needs of the business. If anything, they lend to the needs of the business, because I’d be able to spend more of my time working and less of it speaking with human resources and the ethics hotline.

My feeling is that the company doesn’t care. They want to be ranked highly on the HRC reports and be known as one of the top LGBT friendly companies. However, when it comes down to brass tacks, their words ring hollow. In my opinion, the company could care less. The meeting would allow me to understand if my assumptions are correct. Assuming they are true, then my next course of action would be to consult with a lawyer who specializes in the EEO, discrimination and harassment claims. What else is left?

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