Sooo, I've recently run into an issue at work where I'm out to my supervisors (now that my probation is over, and they cannot simply fire me without sufficient reason) but they refuse to respect my gender identity, pronouns, and gender expression. The reason they gave for this is because the province I live in doesn't acknowledge non-binary genders on government id and government forms, they don't feel that they have to. Which creates all sorts of internal issues for me, specifically microaggressions and rampant misgendering and social/emotional dysphoria when I'm at work. It's getting to the point where I'm struggling to focus on doing my job properly because I don't feel all that safe at work. Sure, I don't think anyone's going to physically assault me for my gender identity or expression, but there's a good chance they won't be comfortable working with me. There's also the bathroom issue - there's two staff bathrooms, and each are labeled according to the gender binary of male and female. I don't feel comfortable using either one, because neither describe my gender identity. I'm not sure what I can DO, if anything, to remedy the situation, and that's the most frustrating and disheartening part for me. Resigning is also not an option, since finding another job would take several weeks to a month and I do need to have an income. Advice on how to handle this issue, or just general words of support, would be most welcome.
Sorry you're stuck in a hard situation hon. Let's take some baby steps though. You've gotta bring home your bacon from somewhere. And you know you're going to run into obstacles like this just about anywhere. So let's view this job as practice. I really hope you do keep it. We're going to go for that, you keeping this job and changing things so you're comfortable there. But I feel like that'll let you look at it in a more flexible way right? So that, you know, worst come to worst, you can get back on your feet and try again 'till something works. So people using pronouns. Direct confrontation just never works here. Whether it is fair or right, and it is so awesome that you respect yourself enough that you're fighting that battle to begin with. But I have found that the better solution is to just try to win one or two allies over to your side and build off that. Let's just focus on that, 'cause correct me if I'm wrong but the biggest problem you have seems to be that people aren't treating you right at work? So do you have anyone on your side there? It's okay if not, just trying to size things up.
