One of my colleagues, let's call her A, is transgender and I'm having some difficulty figuring out how to interact with her.

Another colleague said "hey guys" to a group including me and A, and A took major issue with that. I'm a ciswoman (I think that's the word? Both biologically and psychologically a woman) and don't see anything wrong with using the terms guys or dude (well, the Dutch equivalent) on a group including women or an individual woman. Yes, technically it denotes men, but it feels like a pretty genderneutral term to me. I understand that she is probably going through an emotionally harrowing phase and that that term felt hurtful to her, but her response felt, well, irrational to me. I didn't comment on her response but neither did I side with her on that. Could anyone who has been in the same situation as her (or me) give some insight in how they handled the situation, or how they would've liked it to be handled? I would like to be supportive of her but I have enough trouble with empathy in 'normal' situations and this is a terrain I am wholy unfamiliar with.

I'm afraid I also don't understand transgenders in general. I'm a woman, but not a 'feminine' one; I did jiu-jitsu, play drums, prefer comfortable clothing over fashionable ones, don't wear make-up or high-heels, etc. Apparently, that means the societal construct of gender diverges from my sex; to me, those things have nothing to do with my sex or gender but with me as an individual. I don't doubt I would have been happier if I had been born as a man to fit in better with the expectations of society, but I'm a woman and don't care much about the stuff other people think women should care about. I don't want to change anything about myself or my body because there's nothing wrong with what and who I am. So what I don't understand: why would anyone would go so far as to change their genitals to fit better in that pattern? It's physically and emotionally draining to transition, even without medical procedures, and I find it difficult to comprehend what you get in return.

Please understand, I'm not trying to insult anyone but I honestly I don't understand why it is so important to fit into either gender, and to be affirmed as such? I've been googling for information on anything trans but the internet's a bit of a swamp, if anyone has recommendations on what to read it would be much appreciated!

TL;DR: Don't know how to support trans colleague. Been living under a rock, badly need advice.

(sorry if the ping is unneeded)

Let's just start this post by saying that I'm a trans man, so I have some intimate knowledge of this issue, but obviously, I don't speak for all trans persons or the community.

Being FTM (female to male) or MTF (male to female) has to do with the fact that our physical body does not match up with what our brain says it should be. I look at my female body and it makes me feel physically ill, sometimes it makes me angry, and sometimes it even makes me hate myself. This is called "gender dysphoria", and it's usually the biggest sign that someone is transgender.

Societal expectations also play a role, though. Because I present as female (no choice about it, I have a cherub face and DDD's) I get treated as a woman. And I despise it. People call me "miss", "young lady", and in general treat me differently than if I were to present male, and sometimes I wish I could beat the shit out of them for it, even though to others that reaction may seem "extreme". These days I just kind of grit my teeth and bear it because I'm not ready to be "out" and I know they're not insulting me on purpose.

Now, as for your particular situation with A, I personally also believe that the term "guys" is gender neutral these days, but if she's offended by it (as I am with being referred to as a woman) then you should try your best to avoid the term when referring to her. Just try to reassure her that the person who said it most likely didn't mean it in a demeaning way and that if she takes offense to it, she should politely let that person know so that they won't do it in the future.

Also, just as an FYI, it's not very polite to use the term "transgenders", it's kind of like saying "I don't understand the gays". It just sounds... derogatory. Try "transgender persons".

I hope that my post makes some sense, I've had a hell of a day, so feel free to ping me for any clarification.

So, the situation is that some people have really strong gender identity feelings. Where their gender is a central part of who they are.

Not everyone has these feelings; it sounds like you don't. The feelings and the strength of them varies a lot from person to person. Also it varies a lot from person to person how much it upsets a person to have their identity not recognized, and which aspects of their identity bother them most not to be respected.

For some transgender people, including many (most?) trans women and trans men, the feelings are very strong and don't match the physical form they have. For some, the physical non-match makes them dislike their body's aspects that don't fit their identity, and want to change their body to a better match. For others, the physical non-match doesn't bother them in isolation, but it makes them struggle to get people to recognize their strong identification feelings and that's what drives them to make changes.

In some cases, a trans woman might not feel very differently than you do about things that are generally considered 'feminine' - she might feel like she has to do those things to get people to recognize her as a woman, but not really want to do them in the first place. In other cases (as with cis women) she might really enjoy some particular 'feminine' things or even all of them.

So, how to support her. Always use the right pronouns, consider her a woman, remind the other people you work with that certain terms that seem unremarkable to them might be hurtful to her and not to use them - and remember it yourself. Also probably one of the most helpful things for your own self advancement in wisdom on this topic is to read a lot of writing by trans women and other trans people (trans men, nonbinary, etc). You'll see the breadth of views and viewpoints and get a lot deeper of a comprehension of a whole large group of people who are various and different - try especially to get an intersectional view by reading work by trans women from various races, cultures, religious groups, etc, to get the full picture.

I have been in your position a while back (10 - 15 years ago ish) and spent a lot of time educating myself to learn about gender identity and what it is and how people experience it. So try not to get irritated or defensive when you read their work and realize some of them deeply misunderstand you; your goal is to understand them, so focus on that.

(You will read things like that all cis people have gender identity of their assigned genders, or that all cis people would be upset or horrified to be suddenly a different physical gender, and other overgeneralizations and inaccuracies - many trans women have very strong gender identity and some don't quite realize that isn't everyone's experience; nonbinary trans people tend to be more likely to have less strong gender identity and more likely to understand that others vary in their gender identity intensity as well, so read some writing by transfeminine nonbinary people too, ideally).

Some good recommendations here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/erikaturner/books-by-transgender-women-you-must-read

These writers look interesting: https://www.pride.com/transgender/2016/1/11/5-trans-writers-who-are-redefining-masculinity

Be careful with this as it's expressing the frustrations of being trans.. it will help practice empathy perhaps and to see how confusing and frustrating some young people find even understanding being trans when they are trans. While many will just know from a young age -- many others will spend ages trying to figure it all out and maybe never quite get there.
http://mtfconfessions.tumblr.com/ http://ftmconfessions.tumblr.com

Thank you both for your feedback! I wasn't aware transgenders was considered rude, I'll keep it in mind. I'll be less busy next week so I'll certainly make some time for some reading on the topic, thank you very much for the links!

It may also help to flat out private talk to her. Sometimes the best advice or perspective comes directly from the person. However I am in the same boat as you with the word dude, I use it to address a group of people (hey dudes let's go get ice creams, uhh guys should THAT be happening type of thing), when addressing inanimate objects (something falls over saying dude why did you do that), being inconvenienced by an event or object (dude did this have to happen right now). So maybe helping her understand the person using it was like that and not singling her out may help.

I worked with a ftm myself for a few months recently. Thankfully believe it or not Wal-Mart worked with this situation ( Wal-Mart is usually a company that uses your birth name (which in itself makes sense) and gives you a name tag with your full birthname, no nickname or alts used) and gave him a tag with his preferred name. Even took the hormones to present as male. So being in the same boat as you I asked him some about it. He said it does have to do with how they feel about their body and its reflection of how they feel they themselves may want to be seen to others.

He and I also discussed if it's really honestly rude to call someone how you see them, like if you can see female or male features calling them the right thing such as sir or miss. He said it can and can not be rude. It's rude if you KNOW the persons situation and what they want to be called. He told me its not rude for someone to say miss or sir if that's how a person is being presented or seen as. We further discussed that if a person wants to be known as something other than what you may call them just walking by on the street, its on them to say it, that nobody is going to just know. Like if you dropped your money I might say hey sir/miss you dropped this, or if I ran I to them saying sorry sir/miss. That's the way I was raised was to use sir/miss for people you don't know and likely won't see again.

Like if someone called me a name. I have been called so many things by people I have never seen again that it doesn't bother me. I have had friends however that have said things behind my back that's been hurtful to find out. Needless to say no longer friends as some was pretty grievous. I imagine it's very much the same or similar to the trans community be be called the wrong thing once vs having someone knowing and deliberately using the wrong terms.

However this was from one person, with their own experience and reasons and like most things everything varies. Maybe A was harassed badly at an old work place or even by family and they became defensive without meaning to. However if A has made it known to be called lady terms and people go and say the wrong stuff on purpose that's not ok. So I encourage you to talk to A and get their insight.

Overall just treat them like a person and that alone goes far. This is true of anyone you meet though. Be nice as you can and try not to treat this with gloves. Just watch your address in of her and after that tell jokes or stories just usual friendly yalk.

I don't really have any advice, per say, as I'm a cis woman myself. I just wanted to say how much I love this post and that you care enough to go out of your way to understand someone different from yourself. I wish there were more people like yourself out there.

If I were you, I'd pull A aside to talk to her about the use of "guys". Personally, I think if someone doesn't have any intention of insulting somebody else, then there really is no reason to take offense. Not only that, but it's really unfair to make someone feel like shit for just... talking (referring to the person that said "guys"). I don't know if she expressed how she felt to the person that said it, but I don't think the other employees should feel like they have to walk on eggshells because they have to make sure their vocabulary is completely gender neutral. I'm sure I have the unpopular opinion here, but my reasoning is that if someone doesn't sit down to have a talk with her about non-issue stuff like this, then she's in for a world of hurt. She's going to drive herself crazy and be miserable if she takes things so trivial to heart.

Ping me if you want me to clarify on anything. I haven't slept in almost 2 days and I'd probably word things better if I could sleep lol.

I don't get it completely sometimes myself and I'm nonbinary - which falls into that middle bit of being trans. (And by some people's definition, I'm not even remotely close to being and thus worthy of ridicule so it's like okay, up yours then.)

It's a very, very personal thing and honestly, I'd just talk to them about it and be like, "Hey, there's something I don't completely understand and I was hoping you could explain it to me so I could so we could keep this mutual respect thing going on."

Society has this really weird way of teaching you not to ask questions about things like this but the knowledge isn't exactly ingrained genetically or whatever. The trick is being respectful about the questions. It's a lot of learning and people can be exceptionally harsh during the learning process that comes with the conscious effort of gender neutral talk in a world where "guys/dude/bro" and so on are seen typically gender neutral and suddenly are a huge no no. Which leads into the flip side of people flipping out so hard because you slip up once and you're transphobic this and that and it's like... if you don't know and you were never told any different... how are you supposed to know? It's going to alienate more than educate.

/soapbox

Uhg. Good luck though.

Thanks for asking questions instead of making assumptions, I agree that the Internet is a swamp about getting information about trans people. I never tell anyone to just Google things about us because there's way too much untrue crap that people can run into. I hope this thread will be helpful for you and your situation

For me personally as a trans person, I think gender stereotypes are a load of crap and wish people weren't treated differently at all based on their bodies or identities (Everyone is an individual after all.), but I also have dysphoria. My brain expects certain body parts when I look down and every day is confusing at best and extremely distressing at worst because of that. If I lived on a desert island and nobody was there to call me he or she or they, I would still have problems. I run into doors because I have wider hips than my brain map does regardless of weight gain or loss. When I look at my hands, I feel like I'm in a weird dream. When I talk, I have that weird feeling you get when you hear your voice recorded every time because I always expect it to be deeper. And I hate being misgendered because it's like a rude reminder of the pain I face and also that people treat me a certain way and expect certain social behaviors from me based only on physical things I'm trying to change instead of my personality. When people think I'm a woman, they inevitably end up disliking me because they think I will be one thing, but I'm not, and I'm completely bewildered by whatever subtle social scripts they're apparently expecting me to follow based on the gender they decided I had. I just want to be treated like myself, ugh!

I think you should simply start a conversation with her about what she would rather people use to mean "a group of people." I'm trans, but I'm also from California, and using "you guys" is so common out there that I often use it without thinking about it regardless of the gender of the people in the group. And it seems that your colleague had addressed two women like that, so if she was being misgendered, technically so were you. If you ask her directly, either she'll have some ideas about better things to say and you can have a good conversation about it, or she will feel better because she'll really realize that there actually aren't all that many good and casual ways to refer to a group all at once so it probably definitely had nothing to do with her being trans.