How did you decide when to come out at work

[AlyssaJ]

Searched and found a smattering of different threads on coming out at work. Seems like for most it's a two step process. Let HR and your immediate management know and then at some point down the road there's the coming out to everyone you work with. That's all great information, but there's a piece missing that I'm wondering about.

How did you decide when you should tell HR/Management and when to tell your co-workers. I'm guessing for most, coming out to co-workers is part of going full-time or at least full-time at work. Did anyone tell co-workers sooner than that? Maybe when the effects of HRT were no difficult to conceal? What about management. What factors led you to decide on the right time to tell HR and your management about your plans to transition? Obviously, everyone's work situation is different, I get that. I'm just hoping to get some perspective from your experience.

[Zooey]

I told HR as soon as I filed my legal name/gender-change paperwork. Some coworkers knew, because we're friends and I was "full-time except for work" for quite a while before that. My full-time date was 1 week after my court date, and I sent an email to my team the day before.

You can go full-time before legal changes, but it's a paperwork nightmare. Once you've made legal changes, you basically need to go full-time (or at least change your name with HR/benefits), because your payroll information MUST match your identification for the purposes of social security and tax reporting, etc.

[Georgette_USA]

Some of mine are similar to Zooey.

Some of the details are a little fuzzy from 1976/77. Did not keep a diary but still have a variety of type written letters. NO eMail back then.

Had my court name change. Than had to tell Supervisor - HR dept - and US Government security office. Had to get new ID cards for work.
Than had to get our HR dept and surgeons hospital to argue on a date for SRS. I think most all co-workers figured something going on. After that HR set a date, and than my co-workers (about 20 guys and 1 female) and supervisor and I and the US Army contract office had a big meeting. Also had some meeting with the government workers also, maybe some 50 to start then 100 more later.

That first day was a strange day. Slightly different clothes, some makeup and jewellery. Then to just go around and talk with everyone.

In those days no other documents could be changed until after SRS surgeons letters. HR had to change company records, name was easy, but the databases for sex marker was never intended to be changed.

[Rianna Humble]

My time line might be a little different to many. I started by talking to my immediate line manager as soon as I realised that I could not survive without transitioning. A day or 2 later I spoke to HR and then set up 3 way planning meetings to discuss the timetable.

I then decided to engage my immediate team mates with helping me to plan the announcement to everyone else. Whilst all professed support, events later proved that not all were comfortable with it.

My manager organised the IT side of the change to coincide with the timetable we had set.

In the UK, name change is very straightforward - of the two option available, I chose a Deed of Change of Name (aka Deed Poll). You just need a witness who has known you for a certain time and who is not related to countersign the declaration. My manager volunteered to be that person and we signed it on the day that we had chosen for the announcement to the whole company.

In itself, the announcement was done in 3 phases:
1 The remainder of the teams working for my manager were given a detailed announcement prepared by me and access to an FAQ prepared by me with input from my team-mates
2 Other managers in the same building were briefed by HR and given a summary statement that I had prepared to give to any staff who raised the question
3 Head Office was briefed by HR

[Kate T]

I didn't have to deal with management or HR or stuff because we own our own business.

After around 3-4 months of HRT I was being regularly gendered female by people who didn't know me. At that time we decided to start advising clients gradually as they came in to the clinic. After about 2-3 weeks there were a few rumours starting to get around a little bit and people we hadn't told had started asking staff what was happening. At that point we decided we wanted to control the situation so we sent an email advice to all of our clients and went full time the next day. I already had name change and most of my legal stuff done (it is much easier in Australia than the US, no court dates). It all went pretty smoothly.

[AlyssaJ]

This is all very awesome information, I appreciate it. Rianna, out of curiosity, did you find there were any negatives in having told your manager and HR so early in the process? In other words, any pitfalls or bumps in the road where you wished you had waited longer before telling them?

[Ashley in Virginia]

My original plan was to wait until the spring, but the stress of living two lives is killing me. Once the stress out weighed being scared of coming out, I came out.

[Peggie Lee]

my companies HR came out to our shop to do a training session on sexual harassment and after it ended I had a private talk with her and ask what was their policy on Transgender employees. She was positive and supportive, at this point I came out to her, legal name change was not required, I then talked personally to everyone in our shop in stead of her doing a training class to introduce me and 3 weeks later Peggie showed up a work.

[PretzelGirl]

I am a planner, so I had it all worked out from the beginning. Only two people at work knew ahead of time, both friends. I told my manager a month out and went right into HR and told them. At that time, I had already performed my name change 3 weeks earlier. Essentially, I gave them enough time to work records and how we would proceed, but no more than that so that I could control the story as much as I reasonably could.

Zooey, interesting comment as I changed my name and Social Security 7 weeks before my HR records were changed. I wonder if just having the Social Security number match is enough. Do they only submit based on the number and not the name? Kind of like the bank where my paycheck was deposited to a routing and account number, so a name mismatch didn't matter.

[Zooey]

My understanding is that there is actually other information submitted, including gender in some cases, and that there have been issues with having mismatches at tax time. That was told to me by my benefits people at work. To be fair, that same database also handles insurance registration for us, but I believe in general that they are required by law to report using your legal identity. Had I gone full-time before my legal changes, they would have changed my contact information for email/etc., but payroll and benefits still would have had to use my old legal name and gender. I'm sure a short term mismatch is probably fine, but it's not a sustainable thing.

[Peggie Lee]

My company let me present female while still using my old name, Calif. DMV updated my DL picture and my DOD govt ID also updated my picture, then 6 months later with my legal name and gender court order the names and markers on all my stuff finally got changed.

[Suzanne F]

I also completed legal name change and social security documentation first. There was a gap of time in between completing that and notifying the president of the company. This could have been a mistake. The day after I came out to top management they received a query from our insurance carrier. Since I drive while working I am insured by company. They were confused when policy was renewed as my drivers license number had Suzanne Ford and not my former name. This could have been a big mistake. For me the timing was about not being able to deal with the split life anymore. I advise to be more like Mel and Sue and be very detailed about your plan.
Suzanne

[Lauren B]

I decided to go ahead and come out to everyone and change my legal name after I started getting overwhelmingly gendered female by strangers. I came out to family and friends last September and my boss/HR in mid-October. I had my name legally changed and my documents updated in late October/early November, came out to coworkers in early November, and went full time in mid-November.

I told my job that I was planning to transition and let them know my timeline for when I planned to get my legal documents updated. I gave them a few weeks so they could consult with HQ about how to best handle the transition in-house, and they were fine with everything.

[Leah Lynn]

On day off, I went to the stste office to get the forms to change name/gender. Our parent company is nearby, so I stopped in to talk with hr. A few weeks later the CEO was back from China, and called me for a private meetig. He came to the truck shop and said let's get it done. Then we had a driver meeting where he explained the company's zero tolerance policies,then said that I had something to tell them. I told everyone that I'm trans, and was beginning to transition. I told them that I would answer all their questions there or in private.
One driver quit a week later because of me.

Leah

[ClaudineD]

Was presenting 90%during last year of college(University of Vermont) which was ultra liberal leading to first job in advertising presenting very androgynous-which did not cause an eye to flicker except beefy Union guys when we would go out on shoots - overall...it apwas just a continuous evolution to full on female presentation with no difficulty.....took a bit of time to change over on gender designation on documents as this was in the Stone Age......it was a bit easy with name as given name is Francis....so slowly used Frances...until court records name change to Claudine( in honor of my Aunt mentor).....not as easy as it is now on other changes such as SSN, passport etc. Had a great legal beagle advocate who pushed the issues(and costly).....was completely changed over with identity 1 year before surgery.....next 2 employers just saw legit "female" on all applicable papers.....they have never known I as other than female...as it is none of their business as to my path......seems so much easier with current methods of redressing identity-so jealous-LOL......all dreams take time to create reality....just use available resources and proceed with caution .........

[Rachel Mari]

I started talking to coworkers about a year after starting HRT just to let them know what was going and why I was changing. I learned that they had noticed something and me telling them made more sense.

I wasn't in a hurry to legally change my name yet but the company was starting to hire a number of new people and that motivated me to push thru change name that much sooner. I figured with all these new people coming, I didn't want to have to them learn a my old name and then have me change it later. They'd only ever know me as Donna.

I changed my name a year ago and everyone, including people that have known me for 18 years, use Donna as my name.

[karenpayneoregon]

My timing coincided with preparation for gender confirmation surgery as the surgery date came close and I was dressing androgynously for months but had some people wondering as a year prior I had a buzz cut and now had shoulder length hair along with my voice being more in the female range (had been working on my voice so much I had issues at work going back to my male voice).

I laid out a plan, first came out to my manager then HR the following day then one week later to my team of 20. I told them all in just under two months I was having surgery and after a month leave would return as Karen.

An important thing here is that my home state of Oregon transgender and for that matter the LGBT community is a protected class in regards to the workplace. On a side note I was a presenter at Microsoft last November for an event titled Diversion and inclusion in the workplace that focused on both cisgender females and the LGBT community where I discussed both cisgender and trans while the other eight presenters spoke towards cisgender females. There were after discussions and I get the warm feeling that major businesses were more interested in the person and skills not on how they presented other than they needed to present according to that business e.g. very short skirts were not part of most businesses dress codes or for female to male some businesses did not want to see an open shirt but have a close shirt with tie etc.

[GBJoker]

I just told my supervisors and co-workers as soon as I felt comfortable with them. Never talked to HR. They were beyond useless at every job I've had.