The most frustrating thing for me is the inability to address a situation that bothers me. This happened recently, for the first time someone made a derogatory/homophobic/transphobic comment to Wolsey, and because it happened at work I couldn’t do anything.

One of our coworkers finally realized that Wolsey was transgender about a year after working with him. The coworker didn’t realize it by clocking Wolsey. It just came up for the twenty thousandth time, and the guy finally realized it then.

Evidently Wolsey told the guy that he was trans, and the guy (we will call him Jerk for short) ran in a circle, and came back. I am not joking. He actually ran in a circle in the office, and then came back and confirmed with Wolsey.

Jerk then ran over to me, and asked me to confirm it. I nodded, and confirmed him. At first I didn’t take it too strangely because I have had other coworkers ask, and it seemed the same. Jerk then asked if I had any pictures, so I showed him. His response weirded me out, though. He ran down the aisle of my cube, came back, and said “no fucking way”.

He did this twice more when I showed him other pictures. All he could say was “no fucking way,” and “now I have to rethink all the stories he told me”. I do have to say, that unlike other coworkers in the past Jerk didn’t immediately shift to a feminine pronoun.

For the next couple of weeks Jerk kept staring at Wolsey, I assume he was trying to “see” Wolsey, as he was before transition. It was uncomfortable, but not something we could really do anything about. I really couldn’t justify telling management that “Jerk is looking at Wolsey weird”.

He transferred last week to a different office. This is when Wolsey told me of a conversation with him that just flipped me out. Wolsey and I have both been super sick the last couple of weeks. When we got back into the office evidently Jerk asked Wolsey if he had HIV or AIDs, and is that why he was sick.

Wolsey didn’t tell me this at the time. I assume because Wolsey rightfully assumed I would have walked over, and popped Jerk in the face at least once. Well, maybe not if I had a little while to calm down, however it would have been my first reaction.

The frustration comes from the fact that my office won’t do anything no matter what we say. This is the same man that made one of our instructors at the Agency’s main schooling facility cry in class, and management said and did absolutely nothing. This is the same person who used racial slurs (of the Asian variety) in passing, and no one would move or say something.

Probably the most frustrating thing is we are stuck in a position where I probably can’t afford to die on this hill, pushing for the problem to be addressed. We are stuck here for a while, and until things are settled financially with my parents’ loss I can’t afford to lose the job. I don’t mean that I would be fired, but if things went wrong when I pushed this, it would be hard for me not to walk out. Sadly, that is the bad part of having issues with authority.

I have more to discuss about this, but I feel for now I will let it rest and come back in a couple of days.