Dangling from the edge
Friday Jul 13, 2007
While I have not actually fallen off of the face of the planet, as one might naturally suspect given the recent lack of posts, I have certainly been hanging on by my fingertips lately. Everything going on in my life is positive (a relationship, planning groups and steering committees for various GLBT organizations and events, and, of course, getting ready for San Diego Pride), but when combined with doing the work that Sun pays me to do, it hasn't left much time for blogging. (Sun does encourage its employees to blog regularly, but my technical work still comes first.) For those faithful few who have been checking for updates, I thank you for your tenacity and apologize for the delay. I wish I could promise that it won't happen again, but instead I'll promise to do my best to prevent it.
In other news, I was recently contacted by an individual writing about GLBT employee activism within the workplace - improving corporate policies and such - and was asked to share a bit about my experience at Sun. I don't know if my comments will be used, since other more experienced individuals covered the subject much better than I could, but it is a possibility. There may even be a reference to this blog, and perhaps quotes from it. Exciting stuff, albeit a bit intimidating as well. Once I finished writing up my thoughts about the subject, I realized that what I had written covers a subject that I have yet to address here. Rather than writing it all up again, I will shamelessly copy and paste some if it below. 
(As background, note that GLAF is our employee resource group for LGBT employees within Sun.)
I first accepted my place in the "L" and "T" portions of the rainbow in late 2003. In 2006, when the physical aspects of my gender transition were becoming apparent, I realized that I needed to either find a new job or start preparing for an on-the-job transition at Sun. Many people who transition start a new life for themselves rather than facing the challenges of being an out trans person, but I knew that Sun already included gender identity in its diversity policy (a recent GLAF achievement) and that other individuals had transitioned while working at Sun, so I decided to hope for the best. Great jobs are far too rare to throw away lightly.
After a search for corporate gender transition guidelines proved fruitless, I contacted GLAF for help. One of the board members was able to find an HR employee with former experience in the area, and after months of planning and preparation, my transition was announced to my co-workers and I switched to living "full time" as my identified gender. While the experience has been overwhelmingly positive and successful, I suspect that I did a lot of "reinventing the wheel" that wasn't necessary, so I decided to see how I could help.
The first two things I looked for when I started planning for my transition at Sun were documentation telling me what I needed to do and people who had personal experience with the process. Since I found neither, providing them for future transitioners at Sun became my goal. I joined the board of GLAF as a member at large, and have been working on creating a document with guidelines, procedures and background information that HR, management and transitioning employees can use in the future. I also decided to make myself highly visible as a trans Sun employee - a decision with some significant implications - so that any other employees facing a gender transition at Sun can easily find me. In addition to occasional emails about the subject to our GLAF member alias, I started a blog on Sun's externally visible employee blog site, both to educate the public at large and to make myself available to co-workers looking for contacts.
While my involvement in GLAF is still relatively new, I am already quite amazed - and delighted - by Sun's position on issues of GLBT diversity in the workplace. Every reaction when I have suggested an improvement or proposed taking action myself has been quite positive, typically along the lines of "hey, that's a great idea that we hadn't thought of... let's do it!" I knew going into this that Sun had committed itself to promoting diversity, but I never expected that I would find such eagerness not only to be accepting, but also to proactively engage and support the community.
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