This post comes from my other blog, but it’s a work related issue, that I would have to consider, when I finialy get to the point where I have my own fashion store, so I am copying it here to this blog as well.
If you have been reading this blog or one of my other blogs for very long, than you may already be aware of my support of drag queens and trasvestites rights. If you are new to this blog than you should go to EK’s Star Log and find posts tagged “drag queen” or “Etiole” to see my views on the subject.
Anyways, as some of you may know, the main character thoughout 90% of my books and short stories is a drag queen named Etiole. Many years of research has gone into this character, whom I’ve been useing since the late 1970′s. Due to the extreme prejudice against these men in real life, getting my books and stories about my Etiole published, is next to impossible and usually requires me to self publish.
Well, as most of you know, for my day job I work as fitting room attendant. Now a transvetite usualy looks like a man in makeup, but a full blown drag queen looks just like any other woman you may pass on the street and unless they tell you they are a man, you would never know. I have run into this problem at work. We have fitting rooms for men, and we have fitting rooms for women.
This is my second year at as a fitting room attendant and while here, I have learned one thing: drag queens are a lot more common than most people are aware. Well, since th fitting room I am at, is for women, we send men to the men’s fitting room across the store, however, how does one deal with this, when you work in the fitting rooms in a store that has fitting rooms for both men and women and you are confronted with helping a drag queen?
It never once occured to me to send them to the men’s fitting room. When they walk in, you assume you are dealing with a woman, so why should you think to send them to the men’s fitting room? It’s a delicate sistuation that requires good judgment on the part of the fitting room attendant, so as the not embarase the drag queen, while not offending the other women in the fitting room either.
I keep my writing life and my job seperate, as I have learned in the past, that most people think I am weird for being a woman who supports the rights of drag queens. Apparntly most people assume that only gay men, supprt drag queens (drag queens by the way, are rarly gay, most are husbands and fathers).
So, at work, no one knows my feelings about transgender rights, because the subject has never come up, before. However, the other day, one of the other girls who works here, came up to me and started a rather odd conversation. She works at a fitting room on the other side of the store, and had, I guess, for the first time, encountered a drag queen. He (she?) needed help in the fitting room, and had asked this girl for help. At first the girl had been willing to help, but upon the realization that she was helping a drag queen, she immediatly gathered up his things, and demanded he leave the fitting room and head to the men’s fitting room instead. She was so shocked that a drag queen had dared set foot in the store, that she came all the way across the store, to tell me about it and since I had never spoken to this girl before, I can only assume that she must have went around the entire store and told every fitting room attendant. (We work at a huge department store with multiple fitting rooms… 10 I think). She did not stay long enough for me to respond to her story, I assume she was in a hurry to tell the rest of the fitting room attendants on the other side of the store. Her shock and horror over finding a drag queen in her fitting room, did set me to thinking though…
I would not have done this (either sent him away or gone off telling everyone in the store about it.) I feel that what she did was wrong on both accounts. She should not have sent him away, nor should she have gone around the store blabbing this story to the other workers. I am guessing that she had never knowingly meet a drag queen before, so her shock and her reaction is understandable. But her reaction, was a reaction that was cold and unfeeling, and thought only of herself. She took no consideration to how he must have felt, put in this situation. Around here, drag queens are actualy quite common, but rarely do they make a big issue of it, so you don’t know they are men. These are not the divas you see on stage and TV, these are people who look like your average everyday, ordinary women. They often have normal jobs. Think of how he feels. How hard it is for him to even ask for help in the first place. I mean, can you imagine how embarrasing it would be for them? They look like a woman, dress like a woman, act like a woman, talk like a woman, and 9 times out of 10, no one can tell that they are not a woman. Now they must walk into a men’s fitting room, to try on a fitted dress? What are they supposed to do? Walk up to the man at the men’s fitting room and say: “I need help trying on this dress? or and by the way, I’m a man.” uhm… no, I don’t think so.
Well, all of this had me thinking. When I applied for this job, I remember noting a very odd thing, that I had not seen on other job applications. I had to sign the standard “We do not discriminate contract” that all business’ have now a days. One it was a list of all the thinks this particular business did not discriminate against. You had your standars: race, religion, marriage choices, etc. and than it added at the end: or gender identity. Gender identity, that means this business does not discriminate against hiring a drag queen. I though this was a very odd thing, as in my 2 years of sending in job applications, it was the first time I had seen this mentioned.
Than in oriantaion, we watched a video, which stated that all the store’s empolyees MUST abide by the businesses, non-discrimination laws and that no form of discrimination will be tolerated by their employees on ANY LEVEL. They included gender identity on their list of things we must not discriminate against.
So now I’m questioning, what the girl did and wondering, if what she did was against the store’s policy, because she was discriminateing against this man who has choosen to live life as a woman. If he has choosen to live as a woman, does that not give him the right to use the women’s fitting room? I would think it does, but there are those who disagree with me.
Well, I’ve been running over this in my mind for the past couple of days and now finally I went to Google and started looking up what the law says about such issues. Do you know what I just found out? OMG! I had no idea just how big Transprejudice and Transphobia really was in our country. Such as, did you know, that in Florida it is okay for a business to discriminate against a drag queen; that he could be fired from his job, if his emploer found out that she was really a he? Not only that, but in Florida, he could go to jail because of his liveing as a woman, because in Florida, bing a drag queen is illegal! OMG! In fact, did you know there are ONLY SIX STATES where there is a law saying that it is illegal to discriminate against a transvetite/drag queen? They are California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state. Seeing how Maine is one of the states listed, I think I can now understand, why drag queens are so common around here. I live in Maine, and Maine is listed as one of ONLY six states that are “trasnvestite friendly”. I did no realize how big of an issue this was in other states, nor did I realize that there were actualy states that would put a drag queen in jail just for being a drag queen.
What are employers’ legal obligations with regard to transgender individuals in the workplace? Unfortunatly only six states (California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington state) have laws in place that answer that question in favor of the worker. The rest of the 50 states say it is okay to discrimiate against drag queens and a few even say it is illegal to be a drag queen.
What kinds of legal protections are available to transgender employees? Saddly, not many. In fact almost none.
And back to the original question at hand: What should I do when confronted with a drag queen who needs help in the fitting room? First off, if he has chosen to use the women’s fitting room, than obveously he is either not confortable going to the men’s fitting room or if he was, he already tried there and they sent him to the women’s fitting room, and in either case I am not one to cause him farther embarassment. And secondly, it takes a lot of courage to get up the guts to ask the fitting room attendant for help in the first place… he has to consider the fact that, this attendant may very well be (and most likly is) hostile towards transgendered folks. When you are a drag queen, asking a fitting room attendant for help, may very well be the hardest thing you’ll ever ask of anyone. It is my job to help the women who come to my fitting room and need help. If she looks like a woman when she walks into the fitting room and still looks like a woman when she walks out of it, than I do not think it matteres that she is really a man when behind closed doors.
If you were working in a fitting room and this situation came up, what would you do?
I also wonder, what policies should I put into my store’s guidelines for dealing with situations like this? What about transgendered employees? I’ll have to consider all the laws and such. How does one go about dealing with laws when starting a business? So many things to consider.
What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!
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All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.
There 5 minutes and I’m already posting answers! 
