Why Would a Trans Immigrant Stay in the US?

“Oh I hear an accent, are you from the UK?”

“No, I’m from New Zealand”

“Oh New Zealand! …What are you doing here?”

There’s always such disgust when people say the word here. I know they mean it in comparison to New Zealand, a place that they have idealized in their minds but likely haven’t visited themselves. I loved New Zealand, but I don’t feel like I could have found myself there.

For context, I met my wife when she was in NZ on a working visa in 2019, we thrived in lockdown together in 2020, she exported me to Washington state in 2022, I figured out I was a trans woman in May 2024, and you all know what happened in November 2024… the main reason for the disgust when people say “here.”

My answer to their question prior to The Election was that I came here to be with my wife, and that my life has improved by most metrics. The answer is slightly more complicated now. The fact of the matter is, I feel like the cretins currently in control want me dead for multiple factors: I’m transgender, I’m an immigrant, I’m a lesbian, and I’m poor.

But that overwhelming feeling of being hated doesn’t make me hate America, just the demagogues in power who are pushing us deep into fascism quicker than anyone thought possible. Talk about a slippery slope!

My experience of being a trans immigrant in America has been frightening but glorious. Euphoria with a tinge of paranoia. It’s hard to pinpoint when I felt the vibe shift in this country because it happened right around the same time that I figured out my gender identity. I had to navigate coming out as trans while working in a contact center, a job where I was under constant scrutiny and was constantly misgendered.

Taking off the costume

When I arrived here in 2022, I had been living as a non-binary person for a year but that label never felt quite right for me. I just knew I wasn't a cisgender man after decades of trying to be one. I quickly managed to get a job working in the call center for a credit union in Washington, the main perk of which was that I could work entirely remotely. I just had to go in once to pick up my equipment, meet my fellow trainees, and the onboarding team.

I hadn't disclosed that I was non-binary because I didn't want that to affect my chances of being employed—so when I showed up to the office, I was absolutely in boy mode/a man costume. This led to me being misgendered, because I didn't give them any other information to go off of.

After a week of training and seeing that this was seemingly a progressive company in a liberal state, I decided to put my they/them pronouns in my display name.

They were never acknowledged or used by any of the 10 people in my training group.

Once we joined the contact center fully, I was interacting with up to 30 different team members a day, transferring calls to/from other departments—which lead to constant misgendering by teammates who could see my pronouns: “This is [dead name], HE can help you now.”

I felt entirely unsupported and negated. Every ‘he’ felt like a cold knife to the heart. Clients calling me ‘sir’ out of politeness felt like I was being called a slur.

Then my egg cracked, and I had to face the reality of coming out as a trans woman at work. I worked with my manager and sent a message to my team coming out, and I introduced myself with my new name. It was largely ignored but I got a few sweet messages from coworkers congratulating me and saying it was nice to re-meet me. I cherish those messages, they actually made me feel supported.

On the surface, management was supportive and tried to help me change my name in the system. Two weeks later, I was still having issues with my employee account and phone systems. I had to go into the office for the second time, one of the first times I presented femme in public. There weren't many people in the office but I felt like I was getting side-eye from the few who were there. The only time I felt validated was when a security guard called me “miss.”

Ironically, I had people use they/them pronouns for me more when I said my pronouns were she/her.

I was a Bass 2 in my high school choir, so despite my best efforts, my deep voice kept betraying me on the phone. I'd be feeling like I was sounding somewhat androgynous or feminine, and then I'd get the dreaded “thank you, sir.” I kept getting misgendered by teammates who could see my profile picture and pronouns. One teammate from another department said, “whoa, I didn't expect that voice from that face!”

The worst exchange I had with a client was:

“Your name is Hazel? Like the woman's name? Why do you have that?”

“Because I'm a woman, I just have a deep voice”

“Oh, I never would have guessed that! [Husband], would you have ever guessed that? No, me neither.”

…How the fuck are you supposed to respond to that?

Changing the culture from the inside

I made a friend in the HR department, and we talked about changing our processes so we don't use pronouns for team members. It would actually be easier for everyone to say, “I have [name] from our contact center here. [Name] will be able to help you from here.” They agreed that this was a good idea and promised to talk to their team about the change. They were told that “we don't want to police what people can say on the phone”, as if we didn't have explicit scripting for processes already.

This devolved into them being assigned the task of writing an optional document informing people of how to use people's preferred pronouns, which they kept getting notes and pushback on. The document was still not released six months later.

Due to the constant misgendering, I was exhausted, burning out, and having multiple panic attacks a day. I was doing what I could to create change and was receiving nothing but placation or pushback. The incongruence between being told that this was a lovely and accepting company, and the “don't ask, don't tell” level of their acceptance was driving me insane.

I faced down the decision of staying and trying to push this extremely slow-turning cruise ship in the right direction, or admitting defeat and leaving. Ultimately, my nervous system decided for me, as every phone call was giving me a panic attack. I kept getting reprimanded for taking too long between calls, when I needed that time just to try to regulate enough to get back on the phone. I missed too many days and my performance wasn’t good enough.

I got fired instead of supported.

I took my equipment into a local branch, and one of the clerks took me to the manager's office, knocked on her door, and said, “he's just here to drop off some equipment.” One final gut punch, as a parting gift.

Refusing to back down

It took a few months to rebuild myself. I kept beating myself up for not doing enough to make change for myself or for the next trans person who worked there—as if that was within my control. I channeled my frustration and desperation for change into creating my coaching practice. I figured that I may not be able to make change within these institutions, but I can serve my community by supporting them while they face the endurance challenge of being queer and/or neurodivergent in Late Stage Capitalist America.

When people ask me, “What are you doing here?” (a question I got at least five times a day at the contact center), they’re telling me they would rather be in NZ than the USA. The people who said they wanted to leave were mostly cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, white people. The very people who are least at risk and have the most privilege to use.

I’m a transgender immigrant, and the Venn Diagram of those two identities feels like a bullseye on my back. I could leave and go back to New Zealand, but I refuse to. The fight for trans acceptance needs to be won here, and now. Because if America falls fully into fascism, the rest of the world will follow.

I saw the Trumpian politics infect NZ’s political landscape after 2020, and you can already see other countries emboldened in their transphobia by everything happening here. While it’s easy political rhetoric to say that transgender people are a boogeyman used as a distraction from every other atrocity, people are still dying and being assaulted simply for being who they are. I had transphobic abuse hurled at me just yesterday, and I live in an extremely queer city in Washington.

Trans people need everyone to use their voice in full-throated support. Push back on the narrative that the majority of people hate us. Show up. Vote. Offer support. Tell your trans coworker you’re happy they’re here. Use their pronouns correctly.

Do whatever you can, just please do something. Doing nothing is killing us.