Donna, one of our mHB forum moderators, happens to be the only person we know of who has ever transitioned while working as an attorney at a law firm in New York. Recently she came upon an article about how great it is to be a GLBT lawyer these days, and her reaction was, “Maybe GLB – but T?” and wrote a letter to The American Lawyer about being trans and a lawyer. She refers to a report by the NYCLA from 2005 (which Caprice, another one of our mHB forum moderators, worked on):
A survey by the New York County Lawyers Association of the 25 largest law firms in New York City in early 2005 asked how many attorneys had ever transitioned (that is, publicly changed their gender) while working at those firms. Every one of the firms answered “none.”
She came to the conclusion that in this case, the use of LGBT is used more “reflexively” and so, for T people, “essentially meaningless.”
Thanks to Donna for being willing, not just to transition openly at a law firm, but in being willing to out herself for the sake of setting the record straight, especially because there are, at this point, quite a few people she deals with professionally who don’t know about her history.