Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV), celebrated every year on March 31st, is a day to empower the global trans community and recognise their accomplishments. Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER) explains that the day is meant to uplift trans people, give them an opportunity to speak out, and take action.
Lily Zheng, a writer, activist, and design researcher at Stanford University worked with TSER to come up with this year's theme — "surviving, thriving"
(#TransThriving) — to recognise "that while visibility is important, we must take action against transphobia." The idea that "visibility is not enough alone to bring transgender liberation" is one Zheng and Stanford sociologist Alison Ash Fogarty explore in their upcoming book, Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace.
Gender Ambiguity contains 22 stories from gender non-conforming and trans people about their wide-ranging experiences at work. Fogarty started her research in 2008, after learning more about widespread violence against trans people. "I really walked away from that experience feeling super incentivised to help create change, and this kind of naïve but beautiful belief that if we could educate the world, we could stop the violence," she tells Refinery29.
Zheng, who has shared her story with The New York Times, joined the project when it was a few years underway, and says she felt responsible as an out trans woman of colour in academia "to take my activism and my passion for helping trans folks and translate that into research."
Ahead, they talk to Refinery29 about how the conversation around being trans has evolved over the last decade, what it means to "genderfuck" with people's expectations of being male and female, and what it takes to create a truly cutting-edge, inclusive workplace.
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Alison, you've been working on this book for so long — roughly 10 years. What has changed, if anything, for trans people?
Alison Ash Fogarty: "My conversations with cis people about my research over the past 10 years have shifted and changed. In 2008, it was a lot of explaining what is 'trans,' what are trans identities, and what are their experiences like. In more recent years, it's been a focus on what does it mean to have a non-binary gender experience? How does that show up for people? What is it like to be at a workplace and not be clearly presenting as male or female?
"A decade ago, the conversation was mainly focused on talking about trans men and trans women, and kind of explaining their experiences. In more recent years, the questions I've been getting are 'Can you tell me more about non-binary stuff?' People have been identifying that way for a long time, but I think it's [part of] the conversation in a way that it wasn't before."
Lily Zheng: "In the last 10 years, we've definitely had this rise in visibility where trans topics are now being talked about way more in pop culture, and people generally know what transgender means as a word – and that's not something you would have seen 10 years ago.
"At the same time, there has been very little change with regard to the actual lived experiences in the workplace, with education, and with the real-world implications of discrimination. Now, people are talking a lot about trans folks but the experiences of trans folks aren't necessarily better. As we've seen during Trans Day of Remembrance, the number of trans murders continues to go up. So, addressing that disparity in us talking about trans people but still not creating the social systems to support trans people is a really big priority."
Did anything surprise you as you did your research?
AAH: "The most surprising thing that I got out of this book was looking at all of the ways in which people who don't identify as trans men or trans women perform gender in the workplace. My gender as a cis woman is affirmed every time somebody treats me as a woman, and same for you. And anybody who identifies as a man — cis man, trans man — their identity as a man is affirmed when people treat them like a man. So how do people who don’t identify as a man or as a trans man, or as a woman or as a trans woman have their gender affirmed — and have that gender affirmed at work?
"One of the things that Lily and I talk about is this idea of 'doing' gender ambiguity – the performative nature of doing ambiguity to confuse folks, so that they don't put you in a box of 'man' or 'woman.' It was absolutely fascinating to talk to all of these people about the creative and risky and beautiful ways they figured out how to do that, and then navigate that at work. Which of those types of 'doing' ambiguity could they get away with, or were they willing to do despite any repercussions at work? How were they navigating having people affirming them as a gender when they have had no conception around a non-binary gender?
LZ: "Doing gender is not a new concept. If you look at a lot of the sociological work that's been done in this field, the idea of performing masculinity or performing femininity has been around for decades — but really no one talked about doing ambiguity. Is there a way to perform a gender that is not man or woman?
"My impression is that people assumed it was impossible — that whatever you performed was either masculine or feminine. But something that was incredibly surprising and interesting from this research was that it seems like people are breaking new frontiers and finding ways to perform ambiguity, to signal to people that, No, I’m not a man or a woman and there is a way to look like a person that's not a man or a woman. "
In the book, some people experimented with makeup and tried to signal it that way. Others tried to tell coworkers they didn't care about their pronouns, and that didn’t always work. What were some of the methods you found compelling?
AAH: "One person, Rowan [who is white, non-binary, and gender-fluid], wore a kilt and that was a really interesting way of doing gender ambiguity. Kilts are something that men would wear in some cultures, but not something that men necessarily wear in our culture. Then, to do it at work is not the same as wearing a dress. There's something very ambiguous about that."
LZ: "In the book, we discussed this concept called 'genderfuck' in which people take liberally from both ends of the gender spectrum instead of trying to go for the exact middle. I think about Rory [a Latinx intersex and non-binary person], who did a phone-banking job and worked as a mechanic. They said something along the lines of, 'If I was dressed more feminine, I would let my facial hair grow out and also speak in a higher or lower register. I wouldn't try to look pretty, but I would just wear makeup to wear it.' They were taking liberally from feminine and masculine gender expressions, and that confused the hell out of people. And Rory would just be like, 'I'm right here, right now.' People were extremely uncomfortable with that."
Photo: Alison Ash Fogarty
Your interviewees range in age, race, income, and industry. So, when people had adequate support systems at the very least or even good ones, what was different in those workplaces or communities?
LZ: "Support systems are a really big deal. [In better situations], HR and managers played a key role in being there for trans people when they needed it. Cassidy [an Asian-American trans-masculine person], worked for two different law firms; one firm had a manager that just would not treat them well, use their pronouns, and restricted them from talking to clients because they sounded like a 'Valley Girl,' and they had a really bad experience there. Then at the sister law firm, which is really striking because they were related law firms, their manager used the right pronouns and everyone on the team followed suit.
"So it's not that companies are randomly equipped and you can't predict if one is going to be better than the other; it's really the presence of managers, HR, and people in positions of power who support trans folks. That was really striking and a pretty consistent factor in most of the stories we heard."
How can trans people feel like they have a stake in making these changes without becoming the mascot? With some identities, like being a cis woman or a person of colour, there is likely more than one person in that group at a workplace. But in terms of identifying as trans, there are likely way fewer people who vocalise that identity at work.
LZ: "I think about Leslie [a white trans woman] whose case was a complicated example because she was made a token. She said, 'Things are pretty good for me but the standard is higher and I've inadvertently set the bar for all the trans people who come after me.' It's certainly a pitfall that comes with being one of the only trans people in an organisation that does this. And it's really hard to do well if there's only one because you're kind of a token by default."
So a good fix would be to not just hire one person and think your job is done.
AAH: "I think another thing managers can do is create employee resource groups or promote spaces that aren't gendered. A lot of companies have men's spaces and women's spaces, and men's employee groups and women's employee groups, and men's outings and women's outings. That's going to highlight anybody who doesn't immediately fit into those two boxes. So, it's about having more team-bonding exercises and things that create a sense of unity and collaboration that aren't divided along the illusion of a gender binary."
Photo: Lily ZhengTo be honest, I can imagine people pushing back against that. Think of the very popular slogan right now, "The future is female." It's about empowerment but even in your book, the interviewees' experiences revealed that they couldn't assume cis women were their allies.
AAH: "Yes, and I think this is really the next wave of feminism — to support the empowerment of all genders. In the binary world, that has often meant empowering women. I think what we're advocating for is a need to empower everyone, including trans folks. How can we include that as part of the revolution because it's the same revolution?"
LZ: "Part of this process of including all people is expanding the gender conversation to people beyond women. When people talk about gender studies, what that [generally] means to people is women's studies — but everyone has some experience of gender. People are just beginning to include, for example, men in the gender conversation and that's been radical — seeing that the gender binary hurts everyone.
"Having these larger conversations about gender allows people to recognise their differences, yes, but also allows people to see their similarities. Trans folks aren't these exotic things way off in the distance; we have experiences of gender that are not the same but are similar, in many ways, to your experience of gender. I think this is also where diversity and inclusion need to go as a whole. Expanding this conversation to all people is where we’re going already, and where I think the future is."
AAH: "To add another thought to that, I think that's why all cis people have a stake in this. Society has conditioned us to be in very rigid roles of what a man is and what a woman is. I think we could embrace the creative potential we have as a society so much better by embracing the ways in which we uniquely express ourselves and our unique talents. When we support that for trans people, we are supporting that for cis women and cis men, too."
The book mentions how employee resource groups can be a great option for people. But those are often offered at much larger companies, and many of the people in this book had intermittent employment at best and bounced around. Can you talk about the solutions people might create for themselves instead?
LZ: "I really think about the examples of the people working in food service and retail, for example, Cory [a white non-binary person in their 20s]. Restaurants don't have employee resource groups, especially small ones. In those situations, trans folks are typically on their own and that makes a big difference in terms of what they do to survive.
"Without a formal manager and formal HR, you're in the wolves' den. That's when you see a lot more of these homegrown strategies to survive in the workplace. Trans folks are doing things like not disclosing that they're trans, or only disclosing to certain people, or modifying their bathroom usage. But these strategies become much more relevant when allies are few and far between."
AAH: "Having an ally at work is absolutely essential to people who are trying to survive and thrive in these smaller workplaces. There were occasions of allies pulling people into networks so they felt more included, or providing emotional support."
LZ: "Lee stands out to me as a good example of that. She was gender-fluid in her workplace — a school — but her colleagues and her manager fought for her, which allowed her to escape a lot of discrimination. Having people inside the organisation say, 'Oh no — she's alright!' was powerful, and really exciting, and made a big difference."
What does it mean to be a good ally in this context? That is a raging topic of conversation in various spheres — when people take on that identity without doing the work, or the work they're doing isn't the most helpful.
AAH: "I think doing the research, knowing what's current, and feeling informed and educated is essential, but that's not enough. There are so many ways, and these are just a few, but all of them boil down to being visible and vocal. That means correcting misgendering when you see it happen so that it doesn't always fall on the trans person. That means answering some of the tough questions cis people have so that trans folks aren't put in a position to constantly have to educate people. It means speaking up when spaces look gendered and they don't have to be and making them more inclusive. It means offering emotional support. It means cheerleading their ideas and advocating for them because they don't have the same level of support."
LZ: "It's really about using the power you have as a cis person in a way trans people can't. It's about saying, 'I have access to this system or to this network and you don’t, so I'm going to bring you in or make it better.'
"Also, everything needs to be done in communication with trans folks. The hiccups happen when allies get carried away and start to do things without talking to trans folks. Like, 'Oh, I know what's best for the trans community.' Allyship is all about having the trust of trans folks to do that hard work and to utilise your power to lift trans folks up."
Can you talk about some of the issues of retaliation in this book? The little cuts: slashes in pay, being shunned.
LZ: "I would say that this is really related to folks not fighting for trans people and also the decisions that trans people make. You don't want to put attention on yourself; you don't want more retaliation; and you don't think that if you speak up for things, you’ll win.
"This reminds me of Rowan's case while working at a temp company: They were told by their boss, 'You get three tries with me. I'll help you out three times and then after that, I'm not going to help you out. So, are you sure you want to use one of my friendly help tickets for this instance of discrimination?' I don't know what that is, but it's certainly not legal.
"But again, being the only trans person in the workplace, who are you going to go to? Are you going to go to the trans law centre and have them start a costly and visible legal battle that’ll put you into the spotlight? It was much easier to just leave and I think that's really telling. That's also something that struck us — that so many of these folks were self-employed. You ask them for their story and they say, 'Well, I can't discriminate against myself.' It's sad."
AAH: "Another thing to note is how much microaggressions can impact someone over the long run. Feeling uncomfortable. Feeling tense, like people are staring at them or talking about them behind their back. These are experiences that trans people have faced their whole lives in many cases, so to take more of that on? Retaliation is going to amp up their need to have to manage all of that, on top of trying to have a performance that says, 'I can do just as good, if not better' under conditions that are making that really hard."
What does this all of this mean for the future of the workplace? How do systems or people need to change in traditional workplaces?
AAH: "Think about how much of a trans or gender-diverse person's mental attention is devoted to figuring out how to be themselves safely at work; that is such a waste. They're not able to perform at their potential if half of them is hyper-vigilantly monitoring their safety — and I have to say, that's not an experience that's unique to trans people.
"There are so many people who don't feel safe at work and experience discrimination at work, and we don't talk about how much that experience is a drain on their faculties and their ability to perform."
LZ: "I want to add that this camaraderie is not only going to change the way that workplaces function but also the way they look. When we think of who or what employees will look like in the future, I think we're going to see this huge diversity and that's really exciting.
"People talk about trans people trying to destroy things — no. The boxes for man and woman aren't going away; they're expanding. There are going to be more ways to be a man, and more ways to be a woman. Sometimes the boxes will touch; sometimes they'll overlap. Sometimes you can be outside the box. There are going to be many more ways to be a person in the workplace because there are going to be many more ways to be a gendered person at work.
"That's not only liberating for trans, gender non-conforming, and gender-diverse folks, but that's also liberating for everyone. Everyone has an experience of gender, and that's one of the most exciting things that we both feel about the future: That the future will look, I would say, a hell of a lot more interesting than it does right now."
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