This situation is becoming ludicrous.

Yesterday evening, I came to work to find a note from my boss that Human Resources had resolved to simply require me to continue using the ladies' restroom. They had no explanation as to why. They had no reasons. They
simply said that I would use the unisex bathroom at work until further notice.

Before I had had my gender legally changed, I agreed that this was a fair compromise and I accepted that I wasn't legally female and thus if the company caught any flak about me using the women's restroom, they could be held accountable. Now, however, I had the law on my side. Now, admittedly, I may have erred in not presenting this fact to HR immediately, but as I didn't think it would change anything since they said they had changed my internal paperwork already, I didn't worry too much about it.

When I heard Human Resources' decision, I sent a rather strongly-worded email to both my manager and my department head telling them that I felt HR's policy was ill-conceived and discriminatory, and that I would be
escalating the issue as high as it took to resolve the matter. I am legally female now, and I deserve the same treatment that other females receive at this company. I told them as much and I asked for the name of the person
that made the decision and the appropriate means of going over whomever's head.

Today, I got a response from the head of my department, telling me that he had passed on my concerns to HR and that he was trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting with them to resolve the issue of bathroom usage. I'm
perfectly amenable to this, but I hope that that department understands I won't consider anything less than being allowed access to the proper restroom. If they want to say "don't use this one; give the people who are uncomfortable a place to go without your presence" then I'll live with it, despite not liking it. Even saying "only use this one women's room" would be an improvement over the current situation.

At any rate, I know my manager and my department head support me in my efforts. I regret things have come to this point, but I don't regret anything I've done along the way.

I also found out last night that my gender had not been corrected on the other internal paperwork; I went to fill out my benefits enrollment form for next year and found that the wrong box was checkmarked. I now feel doubly cheated, because I was under the impression that they would change this before, and now I've learned that they haven't. I may be wrong in this, and if so then they haven't lied to me, but I feel as if they didn't have the decency to fix what they knew would be in my documentation at some point. It's highly frustrating.

I still want to believe that this is a good company marred by a lousy HR department. However, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that, and despite my positive review last week I have no desire to move to New York. If I continue to pursue that option, it will only be as a means of last resort, if everything falls through with Gary's company. I hope that doesn't happen.

I try very hard not to hate the general populace for its ignorance and blindness, but there are times I fail miserably.

My boss called me into a meeting yesterday. Someone had complained about my using the ladies' room at work. He admitted that he thought it was a stupid complaint but he had to address it. When I first started my transition, I naturally started using the women's bathroom at work as one would have expected, but someone complained and so I was asked to use the unisex restroom at the front of the building, the one reserved for visitors outside the secured area. I guess I should have been fortunate that the bathroom was there, but I was irritated at the inconvenience and what I considered the discrimination. At the time, I was told it was because I wasn't legally female and that if I had been, there would have been no issue. Thus, when I got my gender legally changed, I simply went and began using the appropriate facility. Someone again complained.

Now, I admit that I didn't tell Human Resources about my legal gender change. However, all of my corporate paperwork already said female on it anyway, so I figured the issue was behind me. This was probably a mistake
on my part, but in hindsight it may not have mattered. I found out later that my HR department is horrible, according to my manager and my head of department.

At any rate, they called me in to ask me what I understood of the agreement I had made about the bathroom. I told them that I was legally female now and entitled to use the appropriate facilities. I then handed over my driver's license and waited while they blinked and very rapidly agreed that the thing to do was chastise HR for allowing the complaint to get out of hand like this. However, in the meantime, they asked me to please go back
to using the bathroom up front until they could hammer out something with Human Resources.

It isn't the bathroom that bothers me, really. That's an annoyance, but at least the facility is there and I don't have to use the men's room or something equally dumb. What bothers me is that the complaints are allowed to affect me at all. One person has a problem at my workplace with my transition, and she has the ability to determine where I pee, and possibly more. I can't talk with her, reason with her, or otherwise address her because I'm not supposed to know who it is. Everyone in a position of authority over me thinks it's stupid that I have to go through this, and yet they still put me through it because someone above them doesn't think it's so outrageous.

I am so hoping to get a job at a place where I am simply accepted as female from day one and never have to fight this kind of battle.

Saturday, I realized I'd lost something and I thought I'd left it in my closet, so I decided to straighten all the clutter that I'd let grow in there. Shortly after starting to organize the boxes of junk that I'd stored for no apparent reason, I came across a box of old clothing and such from before I started my transition.

The clothes weren't for what I'd been searching. Honestly, at the time I had other things on my mind, but after a second basket of unwearable and uninteresting attire turned up, I decided that it'd be a good time to sort all that out and do something with it. So, I started the process of collecting all the old clothes that I'd never need again and putting them in a single place.

At first, I only wanted to have them collected so eventually I could do something with them. I wasn't even sure what at the time. Then I realized that there was nothing I could do with them. I've lost so much weight since then that none of it would fit, even if I did abort my transition, which now is unthinkable. So, I decided that it was time to send it all to Goodwill.

Monday, after carrying all the clothes to the recycling store. I left with this strange sense of elation. I'd put another step behind me. For two months, the old work shirts had hung in the back of my closet, skeletons of my former
life. Now they're gone, and I'm free to fill up all that space with clothes for who I really am, that I'll enjoy wearing and that I'll want to wear in public, for the simple joy of being myself and being seen.

I never did find what I was looking for in my closet, though. Now I can't even remember what it was.