Month: February 2019

Discrimination: Holding Your Head High

The original reason I started this blog was because I wanted to write my feelings on my transition as they happened. Journaling or diary writing or whatever you want to call it isn’t really my cup of tea. As I’ve said before, I have a pretty good memory, so I don’t find a lot of value in it. Writing for an audience gives me a chance to break down my feelings in a digestible way. To present a snapshot of recent events, frozen in time.

So I go back sometimes and re-read some of these posts, today I went back and read Discrimination: Subtle vs. Overt which got me to thinking.

The last few months have been incredibly powerful for me. I officially, finally, and with intention came out. I’ve been living as a woman, and I couldn’t be happier. We opened our first business. We were declined for foster care and adoption, partly because I was trans. I discovered transmisogyny or discrimination whatever you want to call it. I’ve had my job threatened and been placed on probation twice. So all in all, it’s been so busy and up and down that sometimes I don’t know if my head even goes on straight, which might make sense.

The positive things are wonderful. The positivity from so many people has been overwhelming. I can’t be thankful enough for my clients who have been so open and welcoming. I can’t believe how it has opened up people to me, I feel like I’m having better conversations all the time. I’m becoming better at what I do everyday. It’s incredibly rewarding.

Which is why the first and now second sets of probation have been so jarring.

It’s difficult to want to subject yourself to negativity. It starts to feel like a type of self loathing that you accept this sort of toxicity into your life. Yet I know so many have fought much harder, against much more awful treatment. I can’t claim their strength or conviction, but their struggle inspires me.

I don’t know how to magically change hearts and minds, but I do know you need to be in the room to do it. You can’t make those around you better from the sidelines, you can’t let hate seep out of others hearts through silence. It is with dignity and strength of character, conviction of spirit, and an unwavering and deep abiding patience that you change others. However slowly, and at times great cost to yourself.

I want to believe that the struggles I have are due to fear, but increasingly ignorance and hate seem to be part of the equation.

I spoke with a co-worker of mine, we hadn’t caught up in awhile and I was telling her what had been happening. I realised as I was typing out what had happened that it could be broken down to a very simple sentence. “man with three months experience put in charge of improving performance of transwoman with five years experience.”

Said man doesn’t have the management experience I do, he does not have the advisory experience I do, he doesn’t even have the same credentials I do. he is smart in many ways, and there are many things he could teach me, how to give financial advice to clients? I’ve got a lot longer in the chair then he does.

I’ve written about different events that have happened, moments of exclusion, losing access to conversations. I’ve even talked about how I don’t have the right to talk in meetings where others with fewer credentials do.

I recently asked for an apology for one of the more blatant exclusionary events, coincidentally I was placed on probation again the next day. One of the partners talked to me this week and told me that gender has never factored into one of their decisions.

This amongst a group entirely made up of white men, three of whom are middle age, who generally create an echo chamber for themselves.

As an aside one of the powers of inclusion is when it comes to decision making. Groups will eventually come to a consensus, and if everyone involved has generally similar backgrounds and experiences they are likely to come to decisions that reinforce that worldview. Inclusion in groups places diverse people together which creates opportunities for disagreement which refines decisions and makes them stronger.

I can not know how any of the conversations around me are had, I’m not around for them. I can know, that we as humans have numerous mental biases that lead us to make self-reinforcing decisions. If we have nothing to shake our brains into reviewing information, we know that they don’t bother, and we make the same decisions over and over again.

So though no one may have actually said “let’s discriminate against ‘trans professional’ because they’re trans and make sure their transness doesn’t offend our clients.” It is very likely that the conversation went something along the lines of, “I’m not sure if our clients will understand what’s going on with ‘trans professional’ and it would be easier on our clients if ‘trans professional’ wasn’t around to discomfort them.” Which has the exact same outcome. For the exact same reason. So when you have four people make a decision who themselves have never been left out of a room based on any factor of their sexuality, or race, or gender. It’s hard for them to imagine the devastation when they do it to other people.

There are reasonable reasons people can be excluded from things. The activity may not be applicable to them. as an example I’m very involved in our business, but I know very little about providing the services that are offered, sending me on a technical course on any of those topics would be a waste of time and resources. It makes sense to better utilise what we have available and send someone who can use the information. That’s not discrimination.

To circle back around, now that I’ve told my most recent episode of this saga, I want to get to my point. It’s become less and less clear to those around me why I put up with this. Things seem to be getting worse not better. Crying at work has become a norm for me. My professional career which I’ve spent the last seven years attempting to start looks increasingly like a non-starter. Yet I go in, and take the abuse. I hold my head up high.

I don’t know the intentions of those who cause me pain. I don’t know what reasons they have for causing me suffering. I do know that if I walk away I tell the world that if you don’t want a trans person in your workplace, you can treat them badly and they’ll leave. I tell the world that there isn’t a place for people like me in my industry. I tell the world that I wasn’t strong enough, and that I was defeated by hate.

I am not yet willing to walk away from that. Though it pains me greatly each day. Though the hurt and the suffering seem unbearable I wake up each morning. Most days with a smile. I walk into the office and do what I love. I don’t know if it will work out. I don’t know if I’m making a terrible mistake and shouting into the hurricane.

I do know that I will hold my head high, and that I will not be pushed aside. I will endure, and maybe someday even grow and prosper.

I will not let old men stop me from helping others because I am different. I will help others because I am different and can’t be stopped.

 

 

 

Changing the Norm

In my industry the average advisor is generally described by three words; white, old, and male. So anything that doesn’t fit into that pattern is considered abnormal, as an example, young white men are considered noteworthy. So women are largely underrepresented and considered the frontier for diversity.

Yes, integrating white women into finance is still considered difficult. That’s how backward this world is.

This leads me to an interesting conversation I had with a friend of mine, who’s also in the industry. I was discussing the challenges I’ve had with my transition but was talking about how positive my clients have been, and how remarkable it is. He responded with, “well of course, you’ve still got the same skills and mind, there’s no difference now.”

“Actually, a lot of people have opened up more to me, not everyone deals the same way with everyone, some people would prefer the option to not have to go to a white guy for advice.” I replied.

You could hear the whiplash in his head from across the table. He’s a progressive guy, but it hadn’t ever really dawned on him that people would want a diversity of advisors that represented the diversity of people that are out there. It very quickly made sense to him, but in those couple of seconds you could see an entire worldview shatter.

There’s a certain self-reinforcing nature when an industry is as homogeneous as finance is. People stop questioning if it should be as old, white, and male as it is, and start to believe that maybe it’s a natural function, that people want it, so it’s a symptom of demand and not supply.

In reality I believe the opposite, if you want professional advice, the only supply is this norm, so the consumer becomes accepting of this and changes their expectations and perceptions to allow this.

We want advice from people that are credible, and have a perception into our problems that we may lack, or a perspective we can’t get because we’re too close. Not everyone has the same life experience or the same problems they need advice with. The better an advisor is able to understand and relate to an experience the better the advice they can provide. Logically that would mean that professionals would represent a broad base of humanity so that there was a large cross section of perspectives available.

The fact that there isn’t has become so ingrained in our thinking that it’s become normal. Once something is normal it becomes accepted, and its hard to change accepted wisdom. Regardless of how much people might not want it.

Discrimination: Speaking Privileges

Is a misogynist a misogynist if they don’t consider you a woman?

That’s the conundrum I’ve been chewing over today. Is being excluded for being a trans woman a function of exclusion of trans people. Or of women. When you’re also the only woman in the room it’s hard to know.

Let me give an example. We have a weekly meeting to review strategy for clients. It’s a meeting between the highest level folks in the firm. I’m just as qualified as anyone in the room. My role is smaller then others but i’m no less qualified to be there. Yet I don’t have “speaking privileges” at these meetings. If I want to say something I have to raise my hand and be acknowledged by someone else. All of the someone else’s are men.

In these meetings I am the only woman and the only trans person. It’s hard to know what status reduces my humanity in the room but something does. Yet my alternative is to boycott the meeting which means I miss out on important discussions and am that much easier to ignore. So I suffer the indignity with grace. I’d rather be an obvious presence then hide myself away.

There are countless methods people use to reduce you. I find it hard at times to find the strength to continue. Every rational part of my mind screams at different times that I’m crazy. That I’m subjecting myself to horrors for no reason. Except one. If I walk away I tell the world it’s okay to treat people like me poorly to get rid of them. I say that you can remove someone you consider a problem if you mistreat them long enough.

I don’t know what the source of their aggression is. Whether it’s hate or fear or ignorance. I just know I’m not ready to let them win.