a dearth of signs ([info]prosphoros) wrote,
@ 2009-07-01 22:01:00
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work
I can't remember if I've already talked about this or not. I guess, if so, it's still on my mind, so here goes:

I've got a new manager at work (my old manager is now my manager's manager, but it's good). The new manager is nice, engaging, has a strong HR background, and seems to be willing and able to work with me and within the environment as it exists. Sounds great, right?

But every time I do something she thinks is good, or commendable, or something she hadn't thought of yet, she tells me what a "good man" I am. It's meant, I'm sure, in the best of all possible lights, but it's the blindness to even the possibility that that might not be the best phrasing, or at least slightly problematic (particularly given her HR background), that adds some impersonal head scratching to the very personal gut stabbing reaction. Of course there's no problem with referring to people who are obviously one of two sexes by that label; who could possibly take issue with that?

Um, well, I could...

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[info]sororbabylon
2009-07-02 02:10 am UTC (link)
Do you think you could communicate with her that you are trans? Sometimes you have to hit people with a clue by four (which you no doubt know all too well). I had no idea you identified as trans until I read your blog. That's not to say I slapped an OMG MASCULINE label on you, but my assumptions deferred to what I am accustomed to encountering.

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[info]prosphoros
2009-07-02 11:00 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I'm acutely aware that everyone's expectations are rooted in habit. It's hard not to see/feel that the burden of difference is always expected to fall on the different ones, as if sympathy and/or empathy have become mythological beasts that never existed. Everyone else's assumptions always take precedence over other possibilities, and in my own specific case, of aspects of my life. I have to always be prepared to accommodate the lazy privilege of ignorance and unchallenged cisgenderism. If the comfortable are to be afflicted, it is my job to do so, but I have to be nice about it, because how can it be their fault if no one teaches them?*

And sadly, no, I don't think I can talk to my manager about being trans. Our department has already shed jobs, and they're always looking to shed more. I like my manager and my supervisor, but I doubt that any conception of them liking me is large enough to contain challenges that not even a pop understanding of transsexualism can contain; Oprah has yet to do a show on non-binary gender identity.

This isn't all aimed at you, but it's the tip of something large just below the surface you've tripped over. Me, I'm almost always there.


*as if Google only works for angry minorities

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[info]sororbabylon
2009-07-03 01:08 am UTC (link)
I thought I might trip over it. Thanks for taking the time to respond and clarify. :)

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[info]ineffabelle
2009-07-02 02:12 am UTC (link)
Well it might also be:
1. a feminist acknowledgement that you're not a "bad man"; that you're "ok, even though you have a penis"... which is in itself somewhat problematic, but also somewhat understandable.
2. She wants you in a sexual way. This would be much more problematic on a lot of levels.

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[info]prosphoros
2009-07-02 10:48 pm UTC (link)
I suspect, actually, a (sub?)cultural, or possibly regional, difference, one that feeds into your first point from a different take, but to the same ends.

Your second point is... odd, and unlikely, I think. Thankfully.

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[info]sassysmile
2009-07-02 02:46 am UTC (link)
well if someone repeatedly called me a "good woman" I'd be a bit perplexed as to what the second part of that phrase had to do with anything.

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[info]prosphoros
2009-07-02 10:49 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, to say the least.

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[info]k_navit
2009-07-02 04:00 am UTC (link)
dichotomous gender stuff aside, that is a problematic way to address someone, and it's weird.

Are you gonna say something to her? Somebody ought to.

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[info]k_navit
2009-07-02 04:01 am UTC (link)
(not brushing aside the sting of the presumptions, just suggesting that she seems to have some extra ones in addition to the nearly default ones)

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[info]prosphoros
2009-07-02 10:49 pm UTC (link)
I don't feel like I can come at the subject from a position of strength, and so feel like I can't come at it at all, which is dumb on some levels.

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