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Does Gender Fluidity Affect Your Ability to Maintain Employment? (AMAB)

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Snidi, May 6, 2019.

  1. Snidi

    Regular Member

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    Hi all,

    I'm curious if gender fluidity has affected anyone's ability to maintain a job/employment... and how you get around this.
     
  2. Chip

    Board Member Admin Team Advisor Full Member

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    I think it totally depends on your employer. There's no protection, or very limited protection, from the sort of discrimination you are describing, so potentially an employer is within his or her legal capacity to arbitrarily just decide you aren't a fit, and fire you. This also goes along with "at-will" employment, which basically means there's never any implied agreement that the employer will continue to employ you.

    Now of course, this is much less likely to be a problem at a company that takes an enlightened view of gender. But that isn't a lot of companies yet. I have heard of many cases where an employer doesn't understand, or can't "get" why an employee might behave in this way, and may ascribe it to 'attention seeking'.

    So one question to ask yourself is where does the balance lie for you individually? Is expressing yourself through gender-variant clothing in different circumstances at work worth the risk of losing your job (assuming you don't have a known supportive employer)? Or, is expressing yourself that way worth the potential downsides?

    I think it's a decision everyone has to come to on their own.