# Transgenderedness: Destroyer of repressive workplace norms (?)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenderedness-destroyer-of-repressive-workplace-norms/308183>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [June 14, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenderedness-destroyer-of-repressive-workplace-norms/308183 "2005-06-14T04:39:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenderedness-destroyer-of-repressive-workplace-norms/308183/21 "2005-06-20T04:40:19Z")

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> [@Johanna](#):
>
> Whoops, I meant deliberately **flouting** the norm, not flaunting. What an embarrassing language mistake!

You are transflaunted. 🙂

Thanks for the edifying posts!

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**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenderedness-destroyer-of-repressive-workplace-norms/308183/22 "2005-06-20T23:45:47Z")

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> [@Stonebow](#):
>
> Don’t you think that workplace dress code is more based on client expectation than anything else? Positions where client contact is pivotal to the life of the business (lawyers, marketting, sales, etc.) are often dressier than ‘back of the house’ employees. This is, in my experience, driven by what customers want to see.

I think it’s driven more by the \*perception \* of client expections. At one job, we had extensive contact with the client (onsite consulting). My boss expected male employees to wear dress pants and ties because we were “high-priced consultants” and we had to “look the part.” By the end of our first month there, the client had told us in words of one syllable to lose the ties because we looked out of place and it rattled the client’s own employees.

How does this concern transgendered employees specifically? I think employers hear “transgendered”, especially “male-to-female transgendered,” and they think “drag queens.” For some reason, employers seem to think that a gentleman who wore a suit every day for years is going to turn into a walking parody of femaleness in lime-green platform shoes, a feather boa, and a skin-tight, cut-down-to-here crushed velvet sheath dress. Unless your workplace is unusual, this is not what clients expect to see.

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenderedness-destroyer-of-repressive-workplace-norms/308183/23 "2005-06-21T00:03:39Z")

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> [@Aangelica](#):
>
> I agree with **Stonebow**.
> 
> In my experience, office dress code mores are driven almost entirely by customer expectation.

…or expectation of customer expetations!

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgenderedness-destroyer-of-repressive-workplace-norms/308183/24 "2005-06-21T00:12:44Z")

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Whether in or out of the business arena, I think men are a lot more constrained by cultural norms as to dress. We have to dress far more modestly, for one thing, and that’s something I hate this time of year when it gets hot. We can’t wear shorts anymore, because men don’t wear shorts any more, or at least not anything you would have called “shorts” up to about 1990.

Times and fashion change, but it’s discouraging when they change in a restrictive direction.

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