Erfolgreich

I had a very successful week last week. Everything went to plan, and I am so happy about it. Here’s how things went:

I got to work on Wednesday morning to find a couple more people had responded positively to my invitation for Friday night. I also received an email from my department head telling me to put a presentation together on the quick for that afternoon. My development team was invited to give a presentation for the Global Product Planning Group (GPPG) which consisted of the two company presidents, a standard product manager, and three top sales and marketing directors. Two of the three sales and marketing guys are brits and the other Irish, none of them speak German so the presentation was to be given in English. We were scheduled to go on at 2p until 4p. I got my presentation together mostly before going to lunch. The headcount for my party was 50, so I ordered enough food and drink from the cafeteria for 55 people.

After lunch I finished my presentation just in the nick of time. We all went up to the fourth floor to the executive conference room where we were met by the participants. One of the sales and marketing guys I already know fairly well, and I like him because he tends to show his appreciation for the people that he feels do a good job. I invited him to my party on Friday via the email, and as soon as he got it he called me. He was in France at the time, and called me because he was worried that I was going to announce that I would be leaving the company. I assured him that I wasn’t, not to worry, but I wasn’t able to give any more details. He said that he would not be able to make it on Friday, but that we would get together for a beer or something when he was back in town. I said ok. As it turns out I ended up presenting to him and the others before he was to fly to the states for a couple of weeks.

The presentations went well and we left with some pretty difficult questions to answer within the next couple of weeks. By the time we were done, the meeting had taken four hours. We were finally getting good feedback from exactly the people we needed it from. It only took three years to get it. I’ll have to wait and see whether or not Jonathan will still want to go out for a beer with me after he hears what my announcement is.

Walter, the cost analyst consultant, invited me and Uli out for a beer after the presentations were over. Uli’s wife was returning from a business trip so he declined. So Walter and I went to the Ratskeller for something to eat and a beer. As we were walking up to the Ratskeller, we ran into two of the sales and marketing guys while on a sightseeing tour with the company president. We said hello and went inside. We ate some dinner, drank some beer, and discussed quite a bit. Half the discussion was about my on the job transition and the other half about the development project. It was clear to me that he was worried about how successful I will be with my OTJ transition. He suggested that it seemed easier to go stealth by moving to another town and starting a new life there. I assured him that I have thought about that option, but decided to stay where I am and try to make the best of the situation. All the worries that he had, I had already thought about many times over. He seemed really worried that I am going into this somewhat naively, maybe because I seemed to him to be too calm about it.

I also realize that no matter how much planning and preparations I make, there are things that are going to happen that I have no control over. I can only hope to deal with the tough situations that will arise with confidence and grace. I have learned very well how to plan for the worst, but hope for the best. Fortunately for me, I have thus far met with success, and I hope it will continue. I went to bed not too long after I got home from dinner.

Thursday at work was spent checking drawings, such fun. I met and spoke with several Japanese guys on my smoke breaks. I ended up chatting with the co-president for a few minutes about living in the Detroit area and in Germany. We shared a common opinion on both areas. We both hated Detroit and we both love living in Europe. It was nice to be able to chat with him a bit. Apparently the German co-president hadn’t discussed my OTJ transition with him yet. I took off early to go home and prepare my face for electrolysis. I was running on time, actually a little to early, so I decided to kill some time by taking the scenic route through the area that I used to live in. I always enjoy that drive. She worked on my cheeks for a half hour each. She was able to clear most of the thicker hairs within that time. I made my next appointment to do around my mouth again for the Thursday before Easter. I figured there would probably be lots of people on vacation at that time so it wouldn’t be so bad when I let the hair grow out in the days before. Then I would have a nice long four day weekend to heal before going back to work.

I spoke with Linda on the phone once I got home from my torture session. I decided to make some little cards with my new name and my webpage on it to give out to people after my coming out speech. I remembered that I had an art nouveau graphics book that included a cd. I picked out a nice frame format with stylized roses over green flowing lines. It took a bit of fussing around until I got it right. I printed them out and planned on cutting them out on the paper cutter at work the next day. I thought about my speech a bit more and then went to bed.

On Friday morning my face cheeks didn’t look too bad. The couple of times I cooled it the night before seemed to do the job. I did have some redness but it wasn’t as bad as the last couple of times. I got to work and got organized for the weekly development team meeting. Just before the meeting I cut the cards up and had a piece of cheesecake at Klaus’ quitting party. He decided to go to work for a branch of the company that sold my branch to the Japanese. He will be working one building away from ours. I wish him the best.

I made it through the team meeting alright, but I could feel the nerves catching up to me. There were mere hours until my coming out party. After lunch I started to get really nervous. I decided to punch out at 2p and work on putting my thoughts onto index cards. I ended up with five cards total. I went down to the assembly hall at three to look for Johannes to start setting up the tables. He was disposing of the old rolling chairs that everyone, me included, traded in for a brand new chair. I finally got a flat screen monitor last week too. Anyway, I waited for Johannes until it was time to go pick up the food and drink at the cafeteria. Doris came looking for me to see if I needed help with the food. We went to pick it up in the assembly van which really helped. We brought it back and set up the tables. We were finished by four. I had an hour to chain smoke and rehearse my speech in my head. I didn’t concentrate so much on the content because I knew it would come out totally different anyway. In the meantime, Doris made an appointment for me at her regular nail salon in Eberstadt for Monday night at 7.30p. She has been super supportive of me since I have been back here, even before I told her of my transition plans. She’s a good friend.

Everyone that was going to come was there by five thirty. Everyone felt they had waited long enough to hear my jibber-jabber, so they all turned their attention to me. There were about 45 of my colleagues there and they formed a crest in front of me and became totally quiet. I was on. I thanked them all for coming and then took a deep breath. I got right to the point and it went a little like this:

I decided two and half years ago to pursue a gender transition. As one can image such a decision doesn’t happen overnight. When I was a child I could tell something didn’t feel quite right, and by puberty I realized what the problem was. My spirit felt female, but my body told me otherwise. I decided to try to suppress these feelings in effort to make my spirit match my body, because I felt this can’t be. This behavior led me into depression and caused me to ruin many relationships. Two and a half years ago I finally realized that trying to change my spirit to match my body wasn’t working at all. So I decided to try it the other way around, by changing my body to match my spirit. So far it is working and I am really satisfied with my decision. I have been under psychological guidance for two years, medical treatment for one year, and I changed my name in Detroit a month ago. My name is no longer Christopher John C…but rather Christine Joan C… I am now far enough along the path of my transition that I am ready to start the real life test. The real life test means that I will start living full time in the female gender role, both privately and at work. This is the reason that I am giving this speech to you today. Monday will be my first day on the job as Christine. I don’t expect you to be able to understand why I would want to change my gender, while often times only those who have this issue can understand. What I would rather ask of you is for you to try to accept my decision and to live with it. I felt it best to inform as many people as possible at once to try to minimize the distraction factor, and to avoid surprises. I don’t expect any special treatment, but rather just the same respect that you would show anyone else. I also ask that everyone try to start using the appropriate pronouns. Instead of he and him, she and her; and instead of Herr C…, Frau C… I realize it will be difficult at first, therefore I will have patience. You will notice very little change in me except for my outward appearance. You can still call me Chris if that will help. I had thought about asking if there were any questions, but I think it may be too soon for that. I have written a webpage in question and answer format with further information, and I have cards with the web address on it for whoever would like to read it. Thank you all for coming and for listening to what I had to say.

Everyone started clapping when I had finished. Heike approached me with a bouquet of flowers and gave a little speech of her own.

She said that it was very courageous of me to pursue a gender transition and to stand in front of my peers and tell them about it. She went on to say that they have noticed that I have become more self confident and generally happier in the past few months. I think I speak for all your colleagues that we will try to support you as best we can. We wish the best of luck with your transition. She gave me the flowers, and everyone clapped again. I was on the verge of tears by the time she was finished. I wanted to break up the seriousness a little so I threw out a joke. I said, “Don’t worry; my designs are not going to change. They will continue to be too complicated, too expensive, and always too late.” Everyone chuckled a bit, and I said “let’s eat!”

Afterwards, most of the people came up to me and either shook my hand or hugged me. They all wished me the best of luck and thought it was very courageous of me to do this, and offered their respect. Most of them immediately started calling me Christine. They also said they never expected my announcement to be anything like this. I felt like I was in an adrenaline shock for a while. I felt really happy and thankful that everything went well, and I was met with nothing but support. I handed out the cards I had made up, and almost everyone took one. I printed 48 of them and at the end I had about four left over. After cleaning up, I rode my bike home and just about collapsed when I got there. I wanted to write a post that night, but the urge to relax won over.

I am such a lucky person. I am thankful for everything that is working out for me. All the planning and stress has paid off. I am so happy.

I forgot to wish trini+grims a Happy Anniversary! Thanks for all the support trini.

I want to go to bed now, so I will catch up on this week tomorrow. Everything continued in a positive fashion this week, more later…