Respect Isn’t Optional: Transphobia, Cowardice, and the Workplace Reality

This isn’t a poem.

It’s a truth that’s been festering too long.

Just so you know it’s not hard to let transgender people exist. It’s not hard to let any minority exist. Especially at work, where the only thing anyone should care about is whether or not we’re doing our damn jobs.

I’ve never once forced anyone to call me by my name or my pronouns. But Axton is my legal name. So if you wanna call me by my birth name, figure it out, babygirl. You’d still be too scared to say it to me. And I bet $100 bucks you couldn’t even pronounce it.

I’ve never cornered someone, never demanded, never begged for respect. I don’t give a rat’s ass, honestly, but we’ll get to that. If you choose not to use my name or pronouns, that’s on you.

But here’s the thing if you can’t show me common human decency, I don’t owe you any either. And when you’re a coward about it, I don’t get the same chance to return the disrespect, or the chance to be the bigger person and not act like an 8th grader who is in my at least third decade of life.

It’s not even about the pronouns. It’s about the fake. The ones too scared to stand up and say it with their chest, who suddenly find courage the second they think it’s safe to be a little bigot bitch.

They laugh with you, the “we’re cool” smiles melting into whispers as soon as you walk away. The stale energy when you walk in. The way they act like you can’t hear them. As if they aren’t obvious. Yet somehow, they never have the guts to be real about their transphobia when they’ve had every chance.

I’m really not stupid.

My ears don’t shut off when I leave the room. But your mouth sure seems to work better when I’m not around.

You think I don’t know? Please. I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

If you don’t respect me, fine. Be real about it. I’d have way more respect for the person who misgenders me to my face than the one who waits until my back is turned. Because that kind of cowardice? That’s lower than bigotry. That’s weakness.

I’ve worked at a lot of nursing homes… some as agency, others as staff… and I’ve seen transphobia in every single one. It slides under the radar almost every time, even when you bring it to the right people. One place even had a specific anti-bigotry clause in their handbook.

Yet when two aides started telling everyone I was a delusional woman who says she is a man yet “has a pussy,” HR never got back to me. I called weeks later and was told that “the problem” said everything was fine now. Sure it was. So I quit. I don’t have to deal with sexual harassment. Since when do we ask the problem if there’s still a problem?

Someone always says, “Hey Axton, I heard this said about you…”

Funny how nobody ever knows who said it though. Just a pile of whispers, recycled jokes, and other people discussing that I’m trans, calling me a tranny, or exclaiming “I did not know Axton was a woman!” As if they’re not just announcing my anatomy to the world.

Let’s get one thing straight: you refusing to call me Axton or a man doesn’t change my LEGAL name or LEGAL gender. Just like saying trans people don’t exist doesn’t erase our existence.

It doesn’t shave the beard off my face which, by the way, probably looks better than your man’s, your dad’s, and yours combined. Yes I see the hair on your face, bold of you to be transphobic with all that. (Body and facial hair on woman is awesome unless she is a bigot!)

You don’t have that kind of power. You never did. Whose delusional?

When you bring that childish energy into a workspace, that’s where I draw the line. We don’t have to be friends. We don’t even have to like each other. We are here to do nothing but our job. But it’s not hard to be a respectful person.

And for the record, I’m no narc. I wouldn’t turn you in or start a fight if you said it to my face. I might buy you a drink and congratulate you for being the first one honest enough to do it.

At least then, you’d be standing on your own bullshit instead of hiding behind a nervous laugh and a whisper.

And that’s the real difference.

I can handle a bigot.

But a coward? That’s worse.

Because at the end of the day, this isn’t about being liked.

It’s about existing in peace while earning a paycheck.

It’s about basic decency… something you’d think would be easy by now.

So if you can’t respect me, fine.

But don’t mistake your cowardice for morality.

Because I’m still here.

And your whisper will never be louder than that.

I’ll be here waiting for you to say it to my face.

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