Not too many years ago, a civil engineer who dressed like a mechanical engineer would have been ostracized at the office – perhaps even asked to seek opportunities elsewhere. Just ask Jim McDermott, of Kansas City.
Trained in civil engineering at the University of Wimshaw, he started to get “feelings” about five years after he graduated. “To look at me I was civil,“ he says, “but more and more I was feeling mechanical.” For years he wore the requisite clothing – but last May he worked up the nerve to come to work dressed mechanical.
“It wasn’t easy,” he says. “I got a lot nasty looks, nobody would eat lunch with me, and I was uninvited from seven of my 12 task forces.” Fortunately his employer, Dodds Structuals, addressed the issue quickly.
“We needed to be sensitive to his colleagues’ discomfort,” says HR Director Thomas Olin, “but we also had to convey that he had the right to dress as he chose.” With an estimated 11.3 million occupational cross-dressers in the USA today, Olin assumed McDermott’s case wouldn’t be the company’s last. So he instituted mandatory sessions where employees “role played” what it would be like to dress as another occupation.
“I didn’t actually put on the clothes but I pretended I was dressed like an accounts payable clerk,” says accounts receivable clerk Sheila Moore. “I quickly realized it was no big deal.”
Other companies have taken similar steps. A recent survey by the Cornish Institute showed that 78 percent of cross-occupational dressers feel “generally accepted” compared to 59 percent in 2017. As for McDermott, lunch invitations soon started up again, and he was invited to join the the form pre-evaluation task force.
“Today most people don’t care if I dress civil or mechanical,” he says. “I’m even tempted to test the waters with electrical.”
