I need to find a job for the summer but I'm not sure what to do about my name and pronouns. I'm pre-everything right now so I could just go by my birth name, but minimum wage jobs suck enough without being misgendered constantly. For my name, I thought about putting my preferred name in parentheses next to my legal name on the application, but I'm not sure if this would cause problems. Otherwise I could just tell them at the interview, but I'm not sure when to do this and how to bring it up. Same with pronouns. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Usually, official documentation calls for official names. There are exceptions of course, and it depends what paper work and so on, but if you want to be safe rather than sorry you may just want to provide your currently legal name and sex. First, I'd check to see what the company policies are concerning protections around "gender identity" specifically. If they do include gender identity, you should definitely be good to go ahead and disclose you trans status (at least to the manager, your coworkers don't need to know). That way if you are discriminated against, you can appeal to company policy and the offender would be dealt with. If the company doesn't protect you, it's more risky since "technically" people can still get away with gender identity-based hate crimes in the USA. Aside from that, you have every right to be called whatever you like. You can, as you said, write your preferred name in parentheses or bring it up in the interview. It should not cause problems - people go by different names for all sorts of reasons. They should respect this. I'm in a similar situation as you. For the time being though, I've decided to bear with the "official" name and sex because I don't want to bother with coming out at a minimum wage, temporary job. But I am going to ask to be casually called a shortened version of my birth name, which is androgynous. Because I'm pre-everything and still dependant upon unsupportive family, I don't want to risk being out. Pick your battles, and all. Of course your situation may be entirely different. Hope some of this helps.
