Several years ago, I was working as a volunteer fire department Emergency Medical Technician. We had just gotten a heart attack patient to the hospital after successful CPR. I was driving the ambulance back to our station. We drove past a bra sitting in the middle of a busy road. My Lieutenant was sitting next to me. He looked at it and joked, “You’ve got to stop changing clothes on calls”. It was a bad joke, but we all laughed. The fire service is stressful. One way we dump the stress is by telling bad jokes. Nothing negative was meant by making me the brunt of this joke. It actually was a sign of respect for the only transwoman in the Department. It meant I was just one of the crew and like everyone else, I was part of the good-natured back and forth ribbing. I realized something that day. If you do the job weight and carry your fair share of the weight, when the mission is important, that’s all anyone really cares about.
I transitioned in 1989. I was probably the first openly trans member of AUTM and ASTP. It helped that I was known as a thought leader in the profession. It also helped that I had sat on professional committees, done sessions at annual and regional meetings, founded and built one of the first global consultancies in our field, and wrote the first textbook in our profession. I had a reputation for doing the job well. So, when people screwed up pronouns or used my old male name, I was comfortable enough with myself to realize it was because they had never met a transwoman before, but they had met me and to them I was still me despite transitioning.
Maybe I was lucky. When I transitioned, I was the only one. I was a “curiosity”. It’s only when there are lots of people in a group that the group can be made a target. After all, if there is only one immigrant in a country how can you say immigrants are stealing jobs or driving a crime wave. If there is only one woman or person of color or LGBTQ person, same thing.
For several years after transitioning, I had gay and lesbian colleagues pull me aside at meetings and privately thank me for making it OK for them to come out of the closet. Not much you can say at times like that. My attitude to people being uptight about me being trans has always been: “If you have a problem with me, I’m glad it’s your problem. Because it sure isn’t mine.” So, I would tell them, I’m glad I helped you be more comfortable so you can do your job even better and contribute even more to the advancement of the profession we both love.
I believe what we do in our profession is important. Humanity and the planet face serious challenges we can help address. It’s hard to do the job well if you keep getting told that the color of your skin, your culture, your religion, or your self-identify means doing your best to do the job well doesn’t matter and you’re worthless. In the current political climate (and not just in the US) fears of discrimination, rejection, job loss, or worse just because you are “different” are regrettably well founded. That fear only ends when we as a profession and as individuals speak the truth to power despite possible retaliation from those who stoke hate. ASTP’s enthusiastic support of EDI ensures everyone knows that what counts in this profession is doing our job well.