EMILY : PERSPECTIVES ON TRANS EXPERIENCES IN THE WORKPLACE

To mark the annual Transgender Day of Visibility, our Capco colleague, Emily offers her perspectives on trans experiences in the workplace. 

Hi! I’m Emily, or just Em. I joined Capco’s S&P group in November 2023. I’m a lawyer and privacy leader, joining from industry with over a decade of experience building enterprise privacy programs. I have a five-year-old son who is absolutely my world, and my interests include cooking, playing music, and nature conservation.

I’m also transgender. Capco is my first job as Emily. And honestly, I’m blown away by how normal everything has been. When I told the person who was working to bring me on at Capco that I was starting my transition, his response was “Oh….I thought you were going to tell me something that was a problem”. Which was the perfect response, but also he was right. It hasn’t been a problem for me so far – Capco has actually been a refuge of normalcy for me from the chaos of early transition. I’m deeply grateful to all of you for that.

 Here are a few things that have impressed me most at Capco:

• Our clear policies related to transgender individuals, from health benefits to client expectations to bathroom use, are fantastic. Simply having something concrete to turn to is a relief from uncertainty and ambiguity.
  
• Our corporate emphasis on diversity and inclusion that was evident even in my pre-hire paperwork sets a tone and expectation that people like me will be made at ease.
  
• Our general culture of valuing knowledge and expertise, where people are hungry to work with you if you prove value, is wonderfully refreshing. I feel like I can stand or fall on my own knowledge, skills, and merits, which is all I really want.

Given the occasion of Transgender Day of Visibility, I thought I would share a few points on ways to support transgender identities generally.

Use the language a transgender person uses for themselves. If you don’t know what pronouns to use, ask. If you slip up, it happens, but please try to remember for next time.

You can’t always tell whether someone is transgender. While I’m visibly trans at this point, there may be others around who you do not know about. Consider that before speaking about sensitive topics.

Listen, and continue to learn just like you would for any other type of diversity. Avoid making generalizations or assumptions about a trans person’s experiences. Remember that there is more than one way to be transgender. It’s a deeply individual matter: every cisgender person’s experience is different, so it is the same for every transgender person. 

Don’t throw away ordinary norms about what is appropriate to ask just because the person you’re speaking to is transgender. To avoid insensitive questions, think about how you would feel if the question was turned around to you, and whether you would be comfortable asking something similar to a cisgender person.

Be welcoming and friendly! Being transgender can be lonely, and often people are worried about how to speak with us. It’s pretty simple – we’re just people! I want to be treated like anyone else. But be warned, if we get started on my kid, you’re getting shown lots of pictures.

Thank you all for making my first experience working while visibly transgender memorable and positive. It’s a crazy time in the world right now for people like me, but simply having a place to experience normalcy helps more than you can know. I look forward to continuing working with you all!