To preface this; I am a trans woman and I have been socially and medically transitioning now for about 8 months.
Around July 2021 I came out at work and changed my name – up until then I was a woman named Skye in my personal life, and a Man in my professional life.
Living two lives became too hard so I didn't waste much time between telling my boss what was going on, and making it public across the company with the help of HR (or at least what passed for HR at this company).
I noticed my boss over the next few months began to start undermining me and doing things behind my back. It made it difficult to manage my department when my employees were being told to do things without me even knowing about it. I was frustrated for them as well, because I tried my best to gatekeep dumb requests from higher up and let them focus on more interesting and important work.
It all came to a head when my boss decided it was prudent to add the admin/HR person into the group chat we were using for internal department discussions, without asking me.
I was annoyed and removed the admin/HR person as soon as I noticed.
There was some back and forth conflict and eventually she was added back in and left there.
A few days later my boss called a meeting between me, Admin/HR person, and himself, to go over why the change was made and I guess to try and clear the air.
Instead of being level headed or reasonable, he opened with “What is your problem with me?”.
I told him that over the last 3 or so months he was beginning to undermine me and I was losing authority over my department, and I felt that it was only since my transition that this was a problem. He got very angry at me – I guess for saying it as plainly as I did – and calling out his behaviour.
Both him and the HR person took the same side on this, and told me this was a wild accusation to make and that the company has been very supportive of me up to that point (which to be fair, they had been for the most part). My boss spent the next 20 minutes berating me with things such as “you're not the person I hired” etc etc. I can't even remember the entire scope of it because I was so embarrassed and upset.
Shortly after the meeting took a turn for the worse, I asked my boss if any of this had to do with my work performance, and after hesitating, he said it didn't and continued on his tirade.
At no point did even the HR person step in and stop the barrage of blatant discrimination and harassment. It was clearly wildly inappropriate but I was too embarrassed and shocked to try and defend myself, and had no allies to defend me.
Once he had finished, I burst into tears and cried in the board room until my shift ended, at which point I went home.
People knew I was in there crying, but no one cared enough to come and see what was wrong.
When I got home, I immediately got to work on my résumé, and started looking for jobs in inclusive, large organisations.
In November I got confirmation that I was accepted into a large university very close to where I live, as a senior technical resource specialising in endpoint cyber security.
After my first day in December, I burst into tears when I got home once I had realised how much I had put up with and how much better would could have been.
I am so grateful I don't have to deal with all that any more, and glad I took the leap to move on from my old job.
Since I resigned at my old job, two of the most senior resources in my old department also resigned, leaving a massive skills gap, likely meaning they are unable to fulfil the requirements of the contracts with their customers.
It is disappointing that it had to come to this, but I am definitely in a much better place now.
The point is:
Don't put up with shit. No job is worth being treated without respect.