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How Ballina Shire Council made life and work easier for transgender woman
Another good news story published by the ABC. Lovely to see so many positive stories appearing (except of course in the USA).
ABC North Coast
By Donna HarperQuote:A transgender person can often experience trauma and discrimination coming out at work, but that was not the case for Emily Finch.Ms Finch’s positive experience with her employer, Ballina Shire Council in northern New South Wales, is being used as a global role model for other organisations to follow.
She, as Mark Silverwood, was employed by the council at the wastewater depot with a crew of 26 men.
She was tired of living a double life as Mr Silverwood during the working week and Ms Finch, a transgender female, on weekends.
A Christmas Eve party in 2015 sparked a desire to become Ms Finch permanently.
Ms Finch made an emotional call a few days later to Ballina Shire Council’s risk and human resources manager Kelly Brown to ask for help in transitioning at work.
“The fears that a transgender person has in coming out in the real world, some of them are completely unfounded and unreal,” Ms Finch said.
“It can be the fear of being rejected by friends, workmates. It can be passive aggression or outright aggression and violence.”
There is a short video assocated with the article.
Sadly we still have to have the obligatory before and after pictures, and the applying makeup shot….but hopefully even that won’t be necessary in a few more years.
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6 Replies
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Yes I read that story today.
Very heartwarming to hear things have gone well for her.And yes why do they have to do the before and after,? news people seem to want that in these stories
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Nice story – the before after thing is silly. Glad to see the pro-activity of the council.
Juliette -
‘The council issued Ms Finch a female uniform and her depot crew was informed she would now be using the female work toilets instead of the men’s.’ Not mentioned in the story whether they consulted the female workers first, rather than just informing them and expecting them to go along with it… I’d like to think that they did, Ms Finch isn’t the only one whose comfort should be considered in this situation.
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Regarding this sentence, “The fears that a transgender person has in coming out in the real world, some of them are completely unfounded and unreal,” Ms Finch said.
I did find that slightly confusing, ‘unfounded’ and ‘unreal’? Maybe I’m reading it wrong?
Claire
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Quote:“The fears that a transgender person has in coming out in the real world, some of them are completely unfounded and unreal,”Searching a bit on the internet I read that….
Fears can be real or unreal.
Real fears come from actual danger e.g. “A car is heading straight for you or your child”
Unreal fears come from our imagination e.g. “Fear of making a mistake, or of failure”
Sigmund Freud used the terms “real fear in contrast to neurotic fear”An unfounded fear is synonymous with a superstition. But I can’t see how it means anything different from an unreal fear.
So I think “unfounded and unreal” is a tautology. Both mean that the fear does not arise from any actual danger and is imagined.
My experience also is that most of the fears I had about coming out in the real world were unfounded/unreal.
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Thank you Adrian, I understand what you say but I’d query the writers meaning. There are fears and sometimes, from experience, they are very well founded and very real. Of course hopefully they will be occurring a lot less.
