Okay yeah on one hand, my gender and sexuality and mental health has nothing to do with doing my job, so I get how announcing my identity and who I am / am not attracted to could be considered as "Inappropriate for the workplace".
That said, everyone who sees me (gestures to cis-passing, straight-passing, masking neuroatypical self in gender-conforming work clothing) and assumes, in the back of their head by default, that I'm a straight cis allo neurotypical person, so the topic has already kinda been brought up in a way. My saying "actually, no" isn't so much an abrupt announcement as it is correction of an assumption.
And correcting those assumptions is important, especially for persons like me who occupy positions of authority, who appear in court and in community conferences, with business owners and CEOs and at-risk members of the public, 'cause when I say, "these are my pronouns, I'm this" then people like me can feel safer, and people who aren't like me get to see that one of us exists in the real world and isn't some scary hypothetical phantom.
And in the future, when someone says "you can always tell who's trans" or "autistics can't hold down real jobs" or "bisexuals are flirty and promiscuous by nature" or "asexuals aren't real, they're just basement-dwelling terminally-online tweens", they can remember that one time they met me in a professional setting where I was who I was and the world didn't end.
So when they see someone who, by chance, does match the image of their stereotype, they'll know that's just normal human variation and not a universal role.
So, it's not so much that I want to "insert my deviance into the workplace"- it's just me saying, "look at me. I'm here. We're all here, and for every one of us you see, there's a hundred others that you don't. Because you don't know what we look like, and wouldn't know unless we told you."
The status quo, the closeted life, is, "becareful who you come out to, because you could be surrounded by enemies, and you wouldn't know until it's too late".
When I wear a pin, when I out myself in a small, subtle way, I say back: "be careful who you lash out at, because they could be surrounded by defenders, and you won't know until it's too late."
It says, "if you couldn't recognize me without this flag, then how many more of us might be out here with me?"
And the statement "you cannot attack me, we're safe here" should not be banned in the workplace
2087
titsay
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
