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When I came When I was 49, I knew I had a lot of struggles before. I didn’t expect the email to make it clear to me that I wasn’t.
Shortly after the transition, I took on an engineering role at a technology company where I had previously worked. I was excited to return. I waited in line on Orientation Day for other new contractors to pick up the laptop, find a seat, and set up their accounts. When it was my turn, the employee who looked at me gave me an amazing look: Somehow my email account already existed, but in someone else’s name. “Well,” I said, “I made the transition while I was gone. I had a different name first.” The employee, caught unawares, apologized and then went to talk to his manager. .I should use the above email address with my deceased name.The system was not designed for someone like me.
I explained that using my dead name was not acceptable. It would confuse my new colleagues and make sure that the first interview I had with them would be about my gender identity and not my new job.
The rest of the morning, while I waited for a solution, I saw my new co-workers and colleagues continue to receive and receive welcome messages. The problem was corrected thanks to my permanent manager, but I already felt behind and as if I didn’t have priority. No one should feel left out on their first day of work, and I doubt any organization wants their new hires to feel that way.
There was so much transition at stake, how it would affect my family and loved ones and what my career meant. Email is the last thing we, or any trans person, should worry about.
Many trans people have similar difficulties updating workplace systems that feature their names and genders. Often, these systems cannot be edited, linked to legal documents, or offer narrow options. These limitations make it difficult — often painful — for Transbit and non-binary workers to focus on their jobs and support their organizations.
Technology companies are known for being cutting-edge, influencing and driving change. I have spent my life working towards goals in some of the most exciting companies in the world. However, even among the most ambitious and forward-looking ones, basic platforms like email and HR fail trans and binary workers. Technology companies, proud to use technology to solve problems and provide the best work cultures, should be at the forefront of the solution.
Many of these companies are pro-LGBTQ + employees and update their logos with rainbow colors every June. Many offer support benefits and crucial staff resource groups. Even with good intentions, their HR systems say something completely different: that a subset of people is the next thought at best.
Organizations cannot wait to meet their “first” binary or transition workers to ensure that their HR systems are inclusive and supportive. Can you imagine a benefit package that supports only one child because a current employee does not have more than one child? Or Human Resource software that can’t date back to the birth date of its employees because no one in the elderly has ever worked?
Work systems and software should allow employees to define themselves, rather than specifying the assumptions about gender, pronouns, and legal names. Building inclusivity as a priority should also apply to authentication systems, communication tools, and productivity software. It should be easy to change personal information and profile photos as well as remove previous references to information such as pronouns or names.
This problem is not limited to workplace technologies. Updating names and pronouns is a tedious process in legal documentation, publications, and online accounts. For example, in the world of coding an engineer cannot change the name associated with his or her git commitments (because they save progress on a coding project and allow others to help) without rewriting the history of everything they have built. User IDs should be changed without the employee losing access to their profiles. If the technology to make this possible doesn’t yet exist, it’s time to start building it.
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