Retirement Announcement

This weekend I convinced myself to retire four years earlier than I had planned. Cancer propelled me to live authentically. Being assaulted, with pepper spray, in my rental booth space, at Space Coast Pride has propelled me to set a life boundary. It was only pepper spray. A painful but minor inconvenience.

I was back at work Monday morning good as new. Suppose I was attacked with a gun not, with pepper spray? The attacker would probably be just as free as an ICE agent, like she is now and I would not be as good as new Monday morning for work.

Do I want to retire? No. Do I feel like I have a choice? No.

Why should I keep showing up for a company that does not show up for me?

The reality is that I am a sixty-six-year-old (age), thyroid cancer patient (verbally disabled) in addition to being an openly transgender woman (LGBTQ+).

This week, after an almost eight-month long investigation, my company determined that I was not discriminated against based on my gender identity or gender. Which highlights the question that I have been asking myself for the past two years; "how much longer do I want to allow an employer, to profit from me, while they reward those who have discriminated against me?"

Anyone who has been discriminated against knows how horrible it feels. The only worse feeling is the company's internal group, who is there "to protect employees" (their story not mine), gaslights you that you have not been discriminated against.

"So, I deserved an unsubstantiated, as low as it gets, performance review?"

"We are not saying that, just that you have not been discriminated on based on your gender or gender identity."

One of my employer's values, like so many other employers, is "everyone showing up feeling like they belong". How have they shown me that I belong?

• Allowing me to be excluded by my subordinates from performing the duties of my role

• Excluding me from communications and meetings that were relevant to my position

• Relegating me to a role that is grades below my current pay grade

• Retracting a promised promotion

• Allowing me to be retaliated against for raising concerns

• Not allowing me the same privileges that my peers were afforded

• Allowing me to be bullied

• Ignoring my speaking challenges after I had raised concerns about the impossibility of being heard in groups leading me to be silent

• Giving me an unsubstantiated, poor, review that denied me a raise and negatively affected my bonus and ability to secure a challenging next position, while telling me about the great job that I did

• Passing me over for numerous roles that I used to be asked to fill

• Allowing me to be dead named and misgendered

  
  

The person who was fabricated to exist has a long list of accomplishments before and during my current employment. When wrestling with the decision to keep working I weighed out the Pros and Cons -

Cons against retiring -

Unbelievably great pay and benefits

Continue to contribute to my retirement

Pros for retiring -

Everything that I stated above, which is just the tip of the iceberg

I have precious little time left on this planet and so many things that I am passionate about doing

I am not even a little passionate about showing up every day to do something completely unfulfilling

Improved schedule flexibility to scheduling being a podcast guest, public speaker and to promote my books

Enables me to move from advocacy to activism

More freedom to write and speak candidly about my journey

No dress code

No alarm clock

No drug tests

Did I say freedom?

How sure am I that I am retiring? 100% already done!!!

This is not the end of a chapter. That chapter will be written, but this is only the beginning of A Phoenix Rises. But first a one-day vacation at my home in Cocoa Beach. My retirement sendoff was a blast. Fitting that my last day began with a jellyfish rocket launch.