Enlightening my colleagues--formally!
Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 6:52 am
Hi all,
Well, it was coming sooner or later: I approached my boss in order to ask him to allow me to give a small, hour-long lecture to the entire staff (about forty people) regarding transgender and genderqueer identities at one of our monthly staff meetings next fall. He agreed and, in fact, thought it was a great idea.
There are a couple of reasons I saw the need to do so. First, we've had guest speakers at our meetings before, mostly from the medical community, to talk to us about such subjects as mental illness recovery models, schizophrenia and higher education, pharmacotherapy and traditional herbal medicine, zootherapy, Eastern spiritual practices, intervention with people suffering from borderline personality disorders, therapy through gardening and plant-tending, etc., etc. I told my boss that, with the growing pressure from the transgender community to have transgressive gender identities depathologized in the next edition of the DSM, the time was ripe for raising a little awareness amongst ourselves (i.e., the employees at my workplace). Again, he agreed.
The second thing is that I find it striking that, even amongst ourselves--people who've been working for a long time in the mental health field--there seems to still be so much ignorance regarding the transgender fact; some of my colleagues have no clue what difference there is between a crossdresser and a transsexual. I aim to fix that. My boss thought that, too, was a good idea.
Finally, in a slightly more personal vein, I'm not convinced that, insofar as they know me, my colleagues truly believe I'm an adequate representative of the MtF CD population. Only one (out of forty) has ever hung out with me while I was dressed and, of the rest, only about half have ever seen photos of me (or, rather, of "CJ"). I aim to fix that, as well. Because I'm fairly well-adjusted ("fairly" being the operative word, here), and because I have no real hint of femininity about me in my daily life--aside, of course, from my personality, which many believe does exhibit a marked femininity)--my colleagues, I think, may be unaware of the deep pain that is always wanting to roil up beneath the surface, of the constant and unavoidable struggle to just be who I am... a person who is only occasionally the person they believe me to be.
When I got the green light from my boss, I went ahead and announced to the whole gang last week at the monthly meeting that I'd be "enlightening" them on this subject at the October meeting in a few months. The first question I was asked by one of my more colourful (and delightfully madcap) colleagues was: "What's the dress code for this meeting?" General hilarity ensued. "Hey, you can come dressed as a woman--it'd be fun to see you looking feminine," I told her. More hilarity.
Seriously, though, I think this is going to be interesting. Already, right after the meeting, people came up to me to express their interest. On the way home later that afternoon, I thought of our very own Elizabeth's "Psychology 101" thread here on the forum and how she also helped spread the word about the nature and, yes, normalcy, of the transgender fact to students of human behaviour in a formal setting. Hats off to you, girl.
One thing I'm thinking of doing is plucking, gleaning, and collecting little excerpts from posts on this forum (no names, of course) in order to give my colleagues a sense of the inner experience--both lofty and sad--of crossdressers and other transgendered individuals. With your permission, of course. I'd take every step to preserve people's anonymity, natch.
What do you all think? Also, is there anything in particular you think I should bring up in the course of this little talk (aside from the usual basic facts)? Let me know.
Love,
CJ
Well, it was coming sooner or later: I approached my boss in order to ask him to allow me to give a small, hour-long lecture to the entire staff (about forty people) regarding transgender and genderqueer identities at one of our monthly staff meetings next fall. He agreed and, in fact, thought it was a great idea.
There are a couple of reasons I saw the need to do so. First, we've had guest speakers at our meetings before, mostly from the medical community, to talk to us about such subjects as mental illness recovery models, schizophrenia and higher education, pharmacotherapy and traditional herbal medicine, zootherapy, Eastern spiritual practices, intervention with people suffering from borderline personality disorders, therapy through gardening and plant-tending, etc., etc. I told my boss that, with the growing pressure from the transgender community to have transgressive gender identities depathologized in the next edition of the DSM, the time was ripe for raising a little awareness amongst ourselves (i.e., the employees at my workplace). Again, he agreed.
The second thing is that I find it striking that, even amongst ourselves--people who've been working for a long time in the mental health field--there seems to still be so much ignorance regarding the transgender fact; some of my colleagues have no clue what difference there is between a crossdresser and a transsexual. I aim to fix that. My boss thought that, too, was a good idea.
Finally, in a slightly more personal vein, I'm not convinced that, insofar as they know me, my colleagues truly believe I'm an adequate representative of the MtF CD population. Only one (out of forty) has ever hung out with me while I was dressed and, of the rest, only about half have ever seen photos of me (or, rather, of "CJ"). I aim to fix that, as well. Because I'm fairly well-adjusted ("fairly" being the operative word, here), and because I have no real hint of femininity about me in my daily life--aside, of course, from my personality, which many believe does exhibit a marked femininity)--my colleagues, I think, may be unaware of the deep pain that is always wanting to roil up beneath the surface, of the constant and unavoidable struggle to just be who I am... a person who is only occasionally the person they believe me to be.
When I got the green light from my boss, I went ahead and announced to the whole gang last week at the monthly meeting that I'd be "enlightening" them on this subject at the October meeting in a few months. The first question I was asked by one of my more colourful (and delightfully madcap) colleagues was: "What's the dress code for this meeting?" General hilarity ensued. "Hey, you can come dressed as a woman--it'd be fun to see you looking feminine," I told her. More hilarity.
Seriously, though, I think this is going to be interesting. Already, right after the meeting, people came up to me to express their interest. On the way home later that afternoon, I thought of our very own Elizabeth's "Psychology 101" thread here on the forum and how she also helped spread the word about the nature and, yes, normalcy, of the transgender fact to students of human behaviour in a formal setting. Hats off to you, girl.
One thing I'm thinking of doing is plucking, gleaning, and collecting little excerpts from posts on this forum (no names, of course) in order to give my colleagues a sense of the inner experience--both lofty and sad--of crossdressers and other transgendered individuals. With your permission, of course. I'd take every step to preserve people's anonymity, natch.
What do you all think? Also, is there anything in particular you think I should bring up in the course of this little talk (aside from the usual basic facts)? Let me know.
Love,
CJ
Gheesh, several hundred miles apart and I still know what you're doing! 
