It was five o'clock on a Friday at Advanced Manufacturing Software and Friday afternoon drinks were well underway. AMS was a highly profitable Sydney-based company with about 120 employees which was making innovative software to optimise manufacturing processes.
Ali, chief of accounts, was telling the people around him: "We have an application from a guy called John Stone. It will get tricky to set him up here because we already have a John Stevens." At AMS, user names consisted of the first name plus the first letter from the surname. The user names were also incorporated into the email addresses, as in "johns@ams.com.au".
Reuben, a middle-aged senior programmer, offered a solution. "Why don't we just bin the application? Plenty of talented people want to work here. It's just not worth sacrificing our user name convention."
Stephanie from human resources heard this and promptly answered. "We can't do this, it would be discrimination."
Reuben was undeterred. "We could sell this as a diversity measure. We are so diverse, that no two employees have the same first name and surname initial. Let"s not throw diversity under the bus." Diversity was a magic word at AMS. AMS valued diversity and was keen to be seen to value diversity.
Stephanie thought for a moment and conceded. "I suppose if it's for the sake of diversity, then it would be fine."
Reuben had actually not been serious with his suggestion. He had a history of coming up with ideas for a joke which were then taken up. That is how, more than 30 years earlier in high school, he had ended up on stage at the year 12 variety show, in a dress, dancing and miming the words to Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". But for Ali, it now seemed easiest to reject John Stone's application rather than be seen to be anti-diversity. And that is exactly what he did. Just to be on the safe side, he informed Shilpa, the head of Human Resources, who was the company's greatest diversity enthusiast. Shilpa reacted by not only agreeing with Ali's decision but also putting Reuben onto the Diversity Committee.
When the Diversity Committee next met, there was a serious problem to discuss. "We don't have any gender-diverse people in our work force," Shilpa said who was also chairperson of the diversity committee, "Plenty of gays and lesbians but no one who is transgender or genderless."
Once again, Reuben had an idea. "We could encourage diversity in our existing staff by giving quarterly prizes to the most masculine woman and the most feminine man."
Reuben wasn't sure himself anymore whether he was joking or making a serious suggestion. It made no difference; Shilpa went with it. "Great idea, but once someone wins a prize, they are not eligible again for a year, so that more people can win prizes."
The matter was quickly settled. One or two members of the committee harboured private doubts about this proposal but they kept them to themselves. AMS had a culture where employees were encouraged to give their opinions, even if they disagreed with management. But diversity was the one topic where nobody wanted to voice a wrong opinion.
The policy was soon announced. There would be a $1000 prize for each gender, once a quarter. There was a lot of enthusiasm. Perfectly straight men were putting on eye make-up when they arrived in the morning and affecting feminine mannerisms. Perfectly straight women started wearing checked flannel shirts. Most prizes went to the people who were trying to win them or at least happy to win them. Sometimes, the prizes went to people who had not attempted to win them and felt some discomfort at winning such as Daniel who had a slender physique and a high-pitched voice or Stella who had her hair cut short to emulate an actress whom she considered sexy and feminine. But everybody else seemed to consider the prizes such a fun way to promote diversity; it would have been so uncool to complain. And the $1000 prize took the edge off the discomfort.
Then Melanie joined the company as an accountant. Melanie was about 35 years old. She was rather introverted but all who got to know her well found her very likable. She had a low-key feminine style. Although there was nothing obvious that detracted from her femininity, there were a few little things that one might notice, such as a slightly deeper voice and the shape of her arms and legs.
Six weeks later it was Friday afternoon and time for the quarterly prize. Shilpa beamed from ear to ear as she announced the female winner. "The winner is ... Melanie!"
Melanie was horrified. She stood speechless for a moment while her eyes filled with tears and then she ran to the ladies' room and locked herself into a cubicle. Shilpa was irritated with Melanie for ruining the Friday afternoon mood for everybody. At the same time she could not shake the feeling that a crisis was brewing. With diminished enthusiasm she announced the male winner.
Meanwhile, Vineeta and Olga, Melanie's main friends at AMS, went to the ladies' room to attend to Melanie. "What is wrong, Melanie?" Vineeta asked from outside the cubicle.
"I can't talk about it," Melanie answered.
"Let us take you home," said Olga and Melanie agreed.
Vineeta led Melanie out of the building while Olga waved off colleagues who were trying to find out what was wrong. They took an Uber to Melanie's studio apartment in one of Sydney's inner suburbs. They rode in silence.
When they arrived in Melanie's apartment, Vineeta asked again. "Melanie, please tell us, what is wrong".
Melanie opened her mouth to speak but all she said was: "I.., I.."
Olga also encouraged Melanie. "Melanie, we are your friends. You can tell us."
This went on for a few minutes until Melanie finally managed to say: "I was a man."
Vineeta and Olga looked at each other. Then Olga said: "That's totally fine in this day and age. Why did you keep it a secret?"
Melanie answered. "When you live openly and proudly as a transgender woman, you are not truly living as a woman. It's like you are proud of having been born as a man. I wasn't born inside a man's body by choice. I am not ashamed of it but I am also not proud of it. I just try to put it behind me."
Melanie told Vineeta and Olga about her past as a man, her hormone treatment and her gender reassignment surgery. Then she said: "How can I go back to the office? I have been utterly humiliated."
Vineeta answered. "Shilpa is the one who should be ashamed and not you. You have done nothing wrong. But those stupid androgyny prizes were a disaster waiting to happen."
Olga agreed. "That's right. I was also uneasy about those prizes but I didn't want to say anything. I suppose because of our silence, Vineeta and I are also guilty."
Vineeta nodded but Melanie disagreed. "That's just too silly."
Vineeta said: "Just take Monday off. We will go to Shilpa and tell her how badly she stuffed up."
Melanie did not like that idea. "I value my privacy. It's nobody's business that I am transgender."
Olga contradicted. "What happened today must never happen again. And Shilpa is obligated to keep your private information confidential. Besides, imagine the grief it will cause her, knowing what a mess she made." Olga and Vineeta reasoned with Melanie for a while until she finally relented.
On Monday, Melanie stayed home. Vineeta and Olga had a private meeting with Shilpa and explained the situation to her. Shilpa was silent for a minute while she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. Imagine a botanist trekking through the wilderness in search of a rare flower and realising he has discovered it just after trampling it with a misstep. That's what Shilpa felt like. How she had longed to have a transgender person in the company. And now Shilpa had found out that such a person was there after emotionally crushing her. There was a grave danger that Melanie might leave the company. Shilpa would be disgraced. She, the champion of diversity, had committed the greatest offence against diversity. She had offended and humiliated a member of a rare and precious minority. Eventually she regained her composure and said: "I will fix this if I can."
Olga said: "Good. The three of us should visit her tomorrow."
Vineeta nodded. Shilpa agreed. She was not entirely pleased to have to submit to the will of Vineeta and Olga but they were the key to appeasing Melanie so she really had no better option.
On Tuesday morning, they visited Melanie. Shilpa was carrying a huge bunch of white and purple flowers. Going by her clothes, white and purple seemed to be Melanie's preferred colours, along with black. Olga and Vineeta both hugged Melanie. Shilpa handed Melanie the flowers and said: "I am so sorry about Friday. I made a grave error of judgement."
Melanie offered everybody a seat. After they had sat down she said: "Thank you for coming. Here is something you need to know, Shilpa. When a person defines herself as transgender, she defines herself both by her old gender and her new gender. But I don't want to define myself by my previous male existence at all. I simply want to live as a woman."
Shilpa was stunned. She had always wanted to celebrate diversity and minorities without ever stopping to ask herself whether people from minorities had a desire to be celebrated. Obviously, many did but it was now evident that some didn't. Shilpa said: "What you say is something that is unfamiliar to my thinking. But I need to respect this, I realise that. I hope you can continue to work for us. I would hate to be the one that drove you out of the company."
"I don't know if I can," Melanie answered, "People will talk about me and what happened and it will be really awkward."
"It will be fine," Olga said, "We will just tell the people that you did not like the androgyny prizes. Nobody has to know that you are transgender. And, Shilpa, those androgyny prizes have to stop."
Eventually it was agreed that Melanie would take a month off to heal and to give the incident time to fade in people's memory. Shilpa would find a leave category to book the month to so that it would not cost Melanie anything. The androgyny prizes were trickier. As Melanie was not willing to come out as transgender, Shilpa was not willing to give up the prizes. But they found a compromise. From now on employees would have to opt in to be eligible to win a prize.
When they left Melanie's apartment, Shilpa was incredibly relieved that the situation had been salvaged. And she was very glad when Melanie returned to work a month later. But one source of pain remained for Shilpa: Not being able to revel in the glory of having a transgender person in the company.