Friday, March 5, 2010

Disclosing at Work

Have any of you had any experience disclosing your AIS or other intersex status to co-workers or managers?

At the moment, I have no one to disclose to, because I am unemployed and looking for work. However, I have had the opportunity to disclose this information in job interviews. I have not yet, for fear that I might be discriminated against, but it's something I have been thinking about should the right occasion arise.

Let's do a thought experiment: Your prospective employer asks you an interview question like, "What is the biggest obstacle you've ever had to overcome?". Now, if they want the truth, maybe being intersex would be one of the bigger obstacles in one's life. Although, we don't usually talk about our genitals or our chromosomes in those situations, do we?

Or suppose you are being interviewed for a writing job. Or in my case, a web marketing job. The prospective manager wants to know I am fully web savvy and have worked a lot with social media before. Some of my blogs, like this one, would be the perfect thing to show. Yet again, there is a risk there that this type of material would be found inappropriate at this stage in the professional game. Not to mention the bias or prejudice you might encounter when you are too frank, or too genuine.

As I have mentioned before, I have thought about totally "outing" myself in some public forum. And I probably will one day. My real name is so uncommon that there is probably only one of me out there online, and it would not be difficult for me to choose what I'd like people to know about me through a single Google search.

Any thoughts on the matter?

1 comment:

  1. On the bright side, my observation is that paid maternity leave is a hindrance to a woman's career. Both in terms of lost time and expense. What is true is I don't really know who I spoke with, and I trusted too much with. I take a chance hoping not to be rejected. Can't have too many friends in this world. Please answer my email.

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