IMPORTANT: Massive personal change
Letter I just sent to everyone at my company:
Hello, ThinkGeek and Geek.net colleagues!
I am writing this to inform everyone of a big change happening in my life. Since a very young age, I have struggled with a condition known as Gender Identity Disorder. Simply put, I am transgendered. This means that my identity, my brain if you will, is female, and unfortunately my physical form does not match.
Since August of 2010, I have been working to rectify this, and am ready to take the next major step. As of January 2012, I will be coming to work and living full time as a woman. I know this is probably a surprise for a lot of people, and it's a difficult transition. I ask for your patience as we go through this learning process, and I'll do my best to be patient with people who are honestly trying to adapt themselves.
I'm taking the last few weeks of the year off to make my last minute adjustments, and will be coming back to work after New Years with a new look, and finally achieving what is undoubtedly the biggest goal of my life.
What should we call you when you come back? My name (which will be legally changed very shortly) is now Katherine Kirby, Kate for daily use. Please try and use female pronouns (she and her) and not male (he and him). This is a big deal, but I will gently correct for a while if people slip up. Never, ever use 'it'. That's offensive.
What else is offensive that we may not know about? In addition to dehumanizing pronouns like 'it', avoid 'tranny', 'he/she', 'shemale', and other slang. Transgendered or transsexual or just trans is okay. I'm not humorless, but think twice about gender and transgender jokes for a while, as I'll be just barely emotionally managing for a bit. To be clear, HR is giving me their full support that this will be a harassment free workplace with regard to my transition, so if you have something unhelpful to say, keep it to yourself for both our sakes. (And I sincerely hope this is the last time I bring any of this up!)
Have you had the surgery yet? Are you going to? Generally, I don't recommend asking anyone about the state of their genitals in polite conversation. :) But people are going to ask, and the answer is: not yet. Standard practice requires someone to live in their chosen gender role full time for a year before surgical corrections. It's a major surgery and I'll be out for several months when it happens, so you'll know.
What can I do to help? Just be kind! I know some of you will be supportive from day one, and others, it will take a while to see me as a woman. I'm still the same person as I always was, just being more true to myself. My biggest challenge right now is developing a good female voice, and it's just going to take using it all day to really retrain my habits, so please be patient with that. One nice thing about working at ThinkGeek is that it's easy to acquire a first rate geek girl wardrobe for cheap!
Feel free to ask me questions! I've had to become something of a subject matter expert on this topic to get through this, and I don't mind talking about it. I thank everyone in advance for their support and consideration. And good luck to anyone else making bold resolutions for the new year, though I think I've set the bar pretty high with respect to that!
Sincerely,
Kate Kirby
(Formerly )
TL;DR: I'm transgendered and going full time Right Now. Enjoy!
Hello, ThinkGeek and Geek.net colleagues!
I am writing this to inform everyone of a big change happening in my life. Since a very young age, I have struggled with a condition known as Gender Identity Disorder. Simply put, I am transgendered. This means that my identity, my brain if you will, is female, and unfortunately my physical form does not match.
Since August of 2010, I have been working to rectify this, and am ready to take the next major step. As of January 2012, I will be coming to work and living full time as a woman. I know this is probably a surprise for a lot of people, and it's a difficult transition. I ask for your patience as we go through this learning process, and I'll do my best to be patient with people who are honestly trying to adapt themselves.
I'm taking the last few weeks of the year off to make my last minute adjustments, and will be coming back to work after New Years with a new look, and finally achieving what is undoubtedly the biggest goal of my life.
What should we call you when you come back? My name (which will be legally changed very shortly) is now Katherine Kirby, Kate for daily use. Please try and use female pronouns (she and her) and not male (he and him). This is a big deal, but I will gently correct for a while if people slip up. Never, ever use 'it'. That's offensive.
What else is offensive that we may not know about? In addition to dehumanizing pronouns like 'it', avoid 'tranny', 'he/she', 'shemale', and other slang. Transgendered or transsexual or just trans is okay. I'm not humorless, but think twice about gender and transgender jokes for a while, as I'll be just barely emotionally managing for a bit. To be clear, HR is giving me their full support that this will be a harassment free workplace with regard to my transition, so if you have something unhelpful to say, keep it to yourself for both our sakes. (And I sincerely hope this is the last time I bring any of this up!)
Have you had the surgery yet? Are you going to? Generally, I don't recommend asking anyone about the state of their genitals in polite conversation. :) But people are going to ask, and the answer is: not yet. Standard practice requires someone to live in their chosen gender role full time for a year before surgical corrections. It's a major surgery and I'll be out for several months when it happens, so you'll know.
What can I do to help? Just be kind! I know some of you will be supportive from day one, and others, it will take a while to see me as a woman. I'm still the same person as I always was, just being more true to myself. My biggest challenge right now is developing a good female voice, and it's just going to take using it all day to really retrain my habits, so please be patient with that. One nice thing about working at ThinkGeek is that it's easy to acquire a first rate geek girl wardrobe for cheap!
Feel free to ask me questions! I've had to become something of a subject matter expert on this topic to get through this, and I don't mind talking about it. I thank everyone in advance for their support and consideration. And good luck to anyone else making bold resolutions for the new year, though I think I've set the bar pretty high with respect to that!
Sincerely,
Kate Kirby
(Formerly )
TL;DR: I'm transgendered and going full time Right Now. Enjoy!