Carolyn Weiss vividly recalls the nerve-racking moment she stood in front of a group of 85 colleagues who only had known her as a man.

The South Bay resident had come out as transgender to her wife and teenage son a year earlier, but had not yet begun to change outwardly. She gathered her co-workers to let them know she would soon be transitioning.

Weiss recounted to the crowd the conversation with her family members — the most difficult of her life — and took an emotional pause, turning around to reach for a glass of water.

When she faced the room again, the audience had risen to its feet with applause.

“It was probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced,” recalled Weiss, now 62 and retired from a 32-year career working for the city of Los Angeles.

She chuckled when she remembered one of the questions that came from the crowd during a Q&A session that followed.

“One of my buddies from my old division who’s a big sports fan, he raised his hand and said, ‘Can I ask something? Can we still talk about sports?’” Weiss laughed. “I said, ‘Yeah, you know, just because I’m transitioning into female doesn’t mean I’m gonna lose interest in everything else.’”

BUILDING A FRAMEWORK

As a moderator of a support and suicide prevention website for transgender people — individuals who identify as a gender different than the one they were assigned at birth — Weiss knew her experience coming out to her co-workers that morning in 2010 wasn’t common.

Over the years, she knew of only one or two city employees who each transitioned quietly, and heard about one in another department who was harassed.

Weiss spent a year crafting a plan to transition on the job with her HR manager and Drian Juarez, the head of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Transgender Economic Empowerment Project.

“We wanted to put together something that would be a framework for the future,” Weiss said. “That’s why I wanted to transition at work. I was eligible for retirement, I could’ve just left and then transitioned, but I wanted to stay to help other people who might follow me.”

ADVOCACY MEETS BUSINESS SAVVY

It didn’t take long for Weiss to combine her transgender advocacy with her passion for working with business owners, something she developed during her 12 years at Los Angeles’ Community Development Department.

She began giving “Trans 101” presentations to career centers, chambers of commerce and medical students at USC, serving on the city of West Hollywood’s Transgender Advisory Board.

In March, Weiss launched her own consulting practice, Transgender Business Services, offering trainings to help managers throughout Southern California ensure their workplaces are supportive for transgender employees, clients and visitors.

She provides guidance on everything from fostering welcoming office environments and writing employee handbooks, to working with staff on interactions with customers.

“I think because, especially in places like California and on the East Coast, trans people are getting more protections, they find it a little easier,” Weiss said of transitioning on the job today. “I think there’s a little less fear than there used to be, but that doesn’t mean the fear is gone away.”

HARASSMENT COMMON

A recent study by the UCLA Williams Institute found there are 1.4 million transgender people in the United States — twice as many as previously thought. And, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, transgender women made up 55 percent of LGBT homicide victims in 2014.

Ninety percent of transgender people who responded to a national survey reported experiencing harassment, mistreatment or discrimination on the job, and one in four said they lost their jobs because they are transgender.

Transgender people also are twice as likely to face unemployment and four times as likely to face poverty, according to the report.

The rates are even higher for transgender people of color.

EDUCATING WORKPLACES

Recently, Weiss partnered with ZipMart, a company that develops e-learning courses, to create digital versions of her trainings.

“It’s one thing to train a manager and then hope that trickles down, but to be able to talk kind of one on one with the staff, that’s where the real change happens,” Weiss said.

Managers need to recognize all forms of discrimination transgender workers can experience, Weiss said, and not just overt ones. That could be anything from purposefully not using proper pronouns, to making jokes in the break room.

And, she said, it’s important to never assume there aren’t transgender people in your workplace.

“You can’t say, ‘Well, I’m a truck driver, I don’t work with a trans person.’ Sorry, but I know at least half a dozen personally who are long-distance truck drivers,” Weiss said, adding that change happens when allies call out transphobia at work.

“It’s always been my belief that the reason there is so much hostility and fear and misunderstanding about trans people is because they’ve never met a trans person, so all they hear is what other people say or they see caricatures on TV,” Weiss said. “That’s not who we are. I am not a caricature.”

For more information about Carolyn Weiss’ consulting services, visit www.transbizservices.net