Identity politics, and feeling safe at work

I am writing this because sometimes I think I do too good a job at hiding in plain sight, and being invisible – erasing myself – and enhancing my own invisible identity. What is the correct balance between being safe, able to continue my daily patterns, or being a strong upstanding queer who will do what it takes?

The background: I was assaulted at work. I am the tech girl at work, in a small-store retail environment. Three girls entered the store a couple of days previous and had attempted (read: failed) to steal some merchandise using the bathroom to cover their actions, despite the video camera posted over the top of the hallway leading to the bathroom. They tried to drown the security device on the merchandise by drowning – it worked, but took nearly an hour after they left. The night I was working, they returned. We are trained to be aware for signs of insincerity, including someone avoiding my coworkers, avoiding eye contact, making a beeline straight for the bathroom, picking up high-dollar merchandise and using a body or other product to conceal it…in short, we responded in kind. I went back to the bathroom to attempt to interrupt one of the three girls – Blue puffy coat, Black puffy coat, and puffy Vest.

I am a transgender woman. I don’t usually hide who I am, because I have a multitude of other identity facets. I’m a lesbian, a feminist, a goth, a hiker, a gamer and total geek. I love my cat and I get annoyed with any extended stay with my family. In short, I’m human. I’m a person and have a strong sense of identity. I’m out and proud, an ally at work as a lesbian woman, and with one other gay coworker and several allies I have a very understanding batch of coworkers I can surround myself with. After disparaging comments earlier in the year I had come out to my boss and my closer friends at work, did a bit of education, and made sure my boss would have my back if another problem came up.

The problem came up. While pretending to clean the bathroom and provide Good Customer Service my identity was called into question. I live my life with the understanding that those who need to know my background will – ie my girlfriend, for activism, in defense of other trans people…but in general, not my coworkers. Its not their business. It in no way affects work performance, my tracking records, or any opportunities for advancement or raises. While cleaning the bathroom and preventing merchandise from being stolen, Blue had opportunity to hear my voice without my full figure of gender presentation. After 45 minutes of failing to steal some electronics, her friend Vest makes a large disturbance in the middle of the store – calling my gender into question, the infamous Bathroom issue (yes,  our bathrooms have a pair of single stalls with one sink), using the wrong pronoun  and in general causing a big distraction, in order for Blue to ditch the product.

My question to myself is to reevaluate my gender politics…my identity politics. Do I try to be a more stand-up, proactive trans woman? Do I preemptively educate coworkers to be better allies? In my purely emotional response after the mental, verbal, and public assault I cried, yelled – the full gamut from anger to sadness. My girlfriend says I’m a strong woman, my friends say I’m strong, and I know I’m strong, but it still hurts sometimes. I was angry at my coworkers for not really standing up for me at all.  My other queer coworker had his hands tied. Due to corporate America and threats of lawsuits, he really couldn’t say anything without losing his job – we had other customers in the store. After talking to him later I realized that because we were all on the job, we couldn’t kick the three thieves out of the store. We couldn’t engage in a diplomatic, educational banter because frankly they weren’t there to talk. Our hands were tied and the only thing I did was stand there and take it – stoically, with a couple of small sentences “My employer has a great non-discrimination policy which includes gender identity,” “Those bathrooms are single stall anyways.”

Why do we live in a world where trans people, queer people, coworkers and bosses cannot even stand up for themselves? Thieves have the full protection of the court system, in a world when I’m not going to call the police in my own store for fear of being arrested for living in a state where there is no public accommodations language. Laugh at my fear, but check the news and you’ll see countless reports of trans people of all flavors being arrested for being in single occupancy stalls. We just want to get in, get out, and pee – or in my case, do my freakin’ job. The job I am hired, trained, and paid to perform, which includes preventing theft. The job I am hired entails cleaning the bathroom, if necessary, as well as lifting heavy objects which are stored twenty feet in the air.

Do my identity politics require re-evaluation? Should I attempt a more proactive approach?