Coming out at my (non-college) workplace?

When I am not at school, I work at a department store. The last time that I worked there was before I came back for second semester. Now that I am back at school, I will not work there again until spring break (or maybe a weekend, we'll see).

Well, one of my fellow employees found my facebook profile, and then told the entire store that I go by Brad on facebook. I just found this out, since it happened after I returned to school. One of my coworkers messaged me and told me about the rumors going around (Which I thanked him for messaging me).

My father works in the same store (and he knows that I am trans* and is ok with it). I asked him to get my HR person's email so that I could email her about the situation. I got her email address today. The thing is, I really don't know what to write in this email. I know that I have to own up about being trans* (which is something that I've needed to do for a while there) but the question is how? Also, my birthname is Ashley, so I'm thinking that I could go by Ash or Ashton (since Ashton is going to be my middle name). This would help with people actually knowing my name (these people have known me for 8 years. My dad has worked there forever.)

Whenever I start writing the email, I end up stuck.. so I was wondering if anybody had some good advice on how to write a coming out letter to a workplace.

 

I'm not sure who the person is that started spreading things. That's the larger part of the issue.. If I did know for sure, I would include their name, just so they could receive some training about the issues that LGBT people face..

 

That is amazing! I'll make so,e edits on this and then I can send it. This gives me a good template and starting point! Thank you so much

 

Yeah, Ohio does not have protections. I'm lucky enough to work for a company that has a gender discrimination clause though, so that helps thing a lot. I always do keep my emails as records, and since this will be going from my university email, that will make it easy to save. Even though I am in a more conservative area, people that work at the same store as me are pretty cool about things. (One even asked if the new manager we were getting is transgender.. I think that they were trying to convince me to come out that night..)

There's just always that one person that thinks that everybody's business is their own..

I just sent the email, so we'll see what happens now.

 

Urgh.. so naturally, I emailed her on her weekend off.. so the wait for a response continues until Monday... (I guess I've never been good with the timing bit, after all.)

So, now I have to find ways to distract myself..

 

Even though it didn't go at all as planned, things have turned out well. My HR person is having the name on my employment records changed. She is also ordering me a new name badge!

I apparently had the wrong email address.. so my dad asked if she had seen my email. When she said that she had not, he (not thinking) asked if she had seen any emails with the name Brad recently. She quickly picked up on what was going on. It turns out she has a good friend that is a transman as well.

So, in the end, everything finally worked out