Thank you, Sue Robins

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:12:19 +0100

Yours is an interesting and powerful story. You said [quote]The worst days I have had since are better then the best days I had pre-op.[/quote] So true, and a very nearly universal experience, lived in your own beautiful and unique way. What you say about events since then also highloght an important point. Being in life, living life as us, brings with it the ups and dons all us go through. It is what we asked for in the first place. So glad you are here, Sharon - Sharon S. Gaughan

Discrimination......My experience.

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:00:42 +0100

When i realized i couldn't live as the person my body represented and what people around me expected. I had a whole range of choices. I could kill myself, I could run away, turn my back on people I really cared for and live with my decision to break my word with those people or any one of several choices that existed in between. That is what I chose to do. My career was relatively young in its development and running away and transitioning in 1980 would have set back my career by years. I was also facing the possibility that the clock was ticking away on my ability to do that work I loved so much. The work that had been done on my eyes in the late 50â€™s was crude and there was much scar tissue. I was warned that years down the road the work done on my eyes could fail. There was a lot of pressure to stay where I was and make the most of my career while I could not to mention I had given my word to some ones I cared about that I would love honor and cherish themâ€¦.. You knowâ€¦ In 1980 after much discussion and some dissatisfaction on the part of my best friend and wife I went to a local job interview wearing clothing that reflected who I was on the inside, the result was shocking even considering how hard it was for companies who engaged in the defense electronics industry to find mediocre let alone someone who was as skilled as I am at all things RF. (radio frequency) The interviewerâ€™s last comment was "I will get back to you, but I think you will fit in fine. Everyone over is a little strange." The next day he called me at home and offered me a job at Loral Data Systems, I took it. When I started there I had already been working part time for a friend who owned a small two-way radio shop a few miles from my home, Gene knew me well and didnâ€™t care, he liked my work, so did the folks at LDS. There were three companies owned by Loral Corp there and about 270 employees. There was the usual good natured ribbing from some of my coworkers and I knew it was all in fun. I personally think political correctness is a bunch of crap so I took these comments in stride and had some of my own good retorts. I was promoted early and was at the top of my pay grade for the time I put in by the time I received my five-year pin. They felt I could be trusted not just by having the necessary background check done to have me cleared for a couple of classified projects they wanted me to work on, they let me take home test equipment to work on my own projects. Not just a scope or voltmeter (I already had those) but things that were expensive like spectrum analyzers microwave power meters and signal generators. They saw it as an investment. I worked on my own projects and also had a side business repaired things we didn't want in the little two-way radio shop. There I catered to the better of the local CB crowd most of which were not running legal radio equipment usually modified ham radio stuff. I saw a lot of people they just accepted me for who I was and I didnâ€™t try to push an agenda on them. There was no TG agenda here in San Diego back then. Three years into my job at LDS it became obvious to me that there were three people who really did have a problem with how I expressed myself. One person I rarely saw he provided support for our receiver line and I worked on the transmitter line. The second one was his boss over in material control; the third was a coworker who worked on power amplifiers for another type of transmitter we built. S tried hard to make my life miserable, fate however had plans for him. About 6 or so months after he declared war on me was Labor Day weekend. S left for home on Friday and never came back to work. Fate had intervened and at the tender age of 33 he died of natural causes over the Labor Day weekend. A year later there were some shuffling of management, including my bossâ€™s boss. Now the former material control manager was my bossâ€™s boss. I really wasnâ€™t happy about this, the next two years I couldnâ€™t do anything rightâ€¦.. To that point my work had captured the attention of the president of the subsidiary he was one of the three who originally developed the product that was the design for what I had modified to fulfill a contract and he highly impressed. Well you can guess what happened two years of this guy who replaced my bossâ€™s boss and I was still there. They decided they were going cut labor costs and consolidate projects on the transmitter line, his way of getting rid of me. After being there for over seven years I had to find work again I was sad because I really enjoyed that job. The next job was working for a Motorola service station here in San Diego. The first company I had ever worked for that was older them I. Very conservative just a little anal retentive, they interviewed me twice for a shop technician job. The first interview was with my boss the second one a week later was with the president and VP of the company. If they noticed my "shirt and slacks" battened the wrong way they didnâ€™t say anything. A few years later the VP told me that they had noticed and it was not an issue. They supplied the standard issue Motorola uniform $6.00 more an hour so I didnâ€™t complain about the uniforms. They didnâ€™t complain about other items I wore as long as the customers were not offended and that I was practicing good safety. As the cell phone began to replace two-way radios they choose to cut some of their operating costs uniforms were not replaced and we were to use our better judgment. As fate would have it, I moved to within walking distance of the VPâ€™s house. The first time we met outside of work he was a little taken aback, for someone who was a lifer in the Marine corps he took it really well. He did say something to me after our shop meeting the following Monday, all he said was to affirm his statement that what we did in our off time was our business as long as it didnâ€™t reflect on the company, he added, you have no problem there. That career move was a path to working for the county or the state of California, I had the contacts in both places and all I did was bide my time and once I had put in ten years at Quigley communications I was going to move on. That never happened. In August of 1993 my body betrayed me and some of that scar tissue in my good eye tore, I lost most of my close up vision. As it began to repair itself I only recovered part of my close up vision, my career was going to be over, and I and my wife knew it. The only thing I regret was not telling them what happened, a little paranoia kept me from doing so. I rapped up my financial affairs and the third time I was called into the VPâ€™s office with the service manager (my boss) I knew what was going to happen. Everything was in place and when the VP said that he was going to have to let me go because my productivity had dropped to unacceptable levels, all I could say was "well shit happens and you have to do what is best for the company". They Never Once did anything to discriminate on the basis of Anything. They were a great company to work for. I had known people who worked there in the past along with one really good friend who later on decided that completing my transition was too much for him sorry to say. There were some things I did wrong when I worked at Loral corp. If I had a chance to do things over there were a few fires revolving around my means of expression I would not have thrown gasoline on, and I know I would have been there longer. In both cases I never made a big deal out of my means of expression and kept my feelings regarding transsexuality to myself. I gave people the benefit of the doubt when they said something that I could have taken wrong even when I knew they meant it the way it sounded. All an employer wants is really very simple, they want you to make them money, and they also want harmony in the workplace. That certainly is not much to ask for. The last thing any employer wants is some whining tranny complaining about a coworker looking at them wrong. FYIâ€¦ In 2000 I began the process of finishing my transition, I acquired a part time job working for a newspaper here (another story all in itself). I was able to save the money to have my SRS on November 21, 2003. (Thank you Dr Suporn) The worst days I have had since are better then the best days I had pre-op. Like with most post-ops my working life post transition has been good, until the economy started itâ€™s tail spin. I helped a friend in San Antonio with her home repair related business for a year. in a male dominated mostly Hispanic line of work all the three of us (all female) ever received were complements after the initial can you girls really do that? My experiences have markedly different then what is the usual fair I know that. I had to use a little out of the box thinking to break into the electronics business as a partially sighted person in the first place. There is discrimination, what matters is how you react to it. - Sue Robins

Your request for comments on discrimination.....

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:40:55 +0100

Deserves a reply..... The tasks for the day don't allow me to reply right now however this afternoon i shall reply - Sue Robins

Who do we sue?

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:15:09 +0100

Why, we get the address of the President of the National Association of Transgenders and serve a warrant. Can we make it a class action suit? By the way, who is the current President? Do they have a primary election? How many parties do they have? Lots of them, I bet. Jeff and Mary Winnepeg ex-pats - Mary Anne Lestovitch

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Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:13:37 +0100

Who do we sue? - Lois Marckson

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Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:23:49 +0100

I personally have never suffered discrimination post surgery but suffered hell before. Not because I was HBS born as if any knew then what a transsexual or HBS might be but because many might have thought me odd perhaps. After all how many want to change sex and say so while in grammar school. Think I might have more than hinted. Yes!!! :P Yes Lisa, when Stonewall hit I was sitting in the corner bar with a mix of 'changes', gays and straights down the street from Stonewall. I actually lived on W.13th St. during the beginning of transition. Everyone felt the tension because of episodes days in advance. I remember clearly people running by the bar telling us all to run... the cops were coming. We ran in fear that day and I hid under the West Side Highway until it seemed safe to come out. I was told later that the riots actually started because of two FtM transsexuals who were mistaken for gay men. They answered back to the cops and all hell broke loose. During that time I never, and I mean never, ran into what today would be called a transgender. That term did not exist so we just called any we ran into 'tranny's'. Fact is they never associated with us or the gays or lesbians. They probably sat in front of their tv sets drinking a beer in their frills making snide remarks about us running for our lives. Now we are being used as a connection for them to obtain some legal right to be exactly what I must ask? Diane - Diane Kearny

Discrimination?

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:40:32 +0100

No doubt about it - discrimination does exist in many forms. However, much of what I have experienced mainly derive from my age (66) and sex (female). The rest is simply the tough part of being the little person in a big complex economy with swings of expansion and contraction. How is it with the rest of you? - Sharon S. Gaughan

We are in total agreement........

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:03:26 +0100

What the TG movement has done politically is just like the man who tells his wife he reads Playboy in the bathroom with the door locked just for the articles. One thing many ignore about ENDA. As far as employment rights ENDA does nothing. 49 of the 50 states (Idaho is the exception) are at will employment states. Your employer can fire you for any reason she wants. She doesn't owe anybody any explanation as long as there is no overt evidence that discrimination occurred. The burden of proof lies squarely in the hands of the person who was "discriminated against". We all know of that case we can site where the employer was not, informed on their rights and how to manage an employee they want to get rid of. Those days are rapidly disappearing as these TG anti-discrimination laws make their way into every state of the union. As long as "at will" employment is the legal doctrine states adopt and the federal government embrace laws like ENDA are nothing more then window dressing. [i]With the economy in the shape is has been since mid 2006 a lot of people have been out of work and not because of their medical status or quirks..... [/i] - Sue Robins

It's A Little Pitchy, Dawg: The Transgender Bait And Switch