Courtney Crowder

ccrowder@dmreg.com





Jess Bierling’s hands hover over her keyboard with the tense, pointed strength of a scorpion ready to strike. Furiously copying and pasting ID numbers and names from emails into Excel sheets, her eyes dart between the three computer screens that take up most of her cube at Wells Fargo’s home mortgage headquarters in West Des Moines.

Bierling, a business systems consultant, switches quickly between sheets, adding color codes and personal notes to long strings of numerals: a column for reasons that requests were denied, a column for dates received and a column for follow-up reminders.

Occasionally, an assignment completed, her eyes flash to the miniature mirrors on her desk, and she lingers on her image, her gaze soaking in her hair, skin and lips.

The reflection she sees looking back at her from that oval glass finally matches how she always saw herself — a person diametrically different from the man who walked through Wells Fargo’s doors in 2012.

Two years ago, Bierling, now 42, came out as transgender in her office — “one of the scariest things” she’s ever done — and was met with support at every turn, from her manager, her colleagues, her corporate contacts and even the people she passes in the hallway.

As the transgender community moves from the social margins into the mainstream, more transgender people are stepping out of the shadows to live as what they say are their authentic selves — including at the office. But the support Bierling experienced isn’t the norm for many transgender people coming out in the workplace. Instead, most face a “mixed landscape” of positive policies and rampant discrimination, said Deena Fidas, director of the Human Rights Campaign's Workplace Equality Program, based in Washington, D.C.

“There are two disparate dynamics occurring at once for trans people,” she said. “We are seeing inclusive statutes and protocols put in place across corporate America, but we know that transgender people face conscious and unconscious biases in many aspects of the employment process, including facing disproportionate rates of unemployment and underemployment compared to their peers.”

MORE: Click here for more information about our Trans in Iowa: An Intimate Discussion event on Thursday, Oct. 27 at Wooly’s Des Moines.

In a 2011 study, rates of workplace discrimination against transgender people were “alarming” in the Midwest, according to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which was conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality. More than 90 percent of about 1,200 transgender Midwesterners surveyed reported experiencing harassment on the job. Twenty-eight percent said they had lost a job, and 22 percent described being denied a promotion.

Nationally, “extreme levels of unemployment and poverty lead one in eight (transgender people) to become involved in underground economies — such as sex and drug work — in order to survive,” the survey reported.

Gender identity has been included in the Iowa Civil Rights Act for almost a decade, meaning that transgender Iowans have legal recourse if they feel discriminated against. But even with that protection, some gender-nonconforming Iowans say their rights are being denied, as evidenced by a recent complaint filed by Jesse Vroegh, a transgender male and Iowa Department of Corrections nurse who accused the state of workplace discrimination.

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In that case, Vroegh alleged that the department turned down his request to use men’s bathrooms and locker rooms and denied him health coverage for transition-related care, according to a complaint filed in July with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, the state agency that investigates discrimination claims.

The case is under review, according to attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa who are representing Vroegh. Under Iowa law, the commission “is prohibited from confirming or denying the filing of a complaint or commenting in any way” until public charges are filed, said Kristin Johnson, the commission's executive director.

Despite the bleak realities facing some transgender workers, 78 percent of those who successfully transition in the workplace report being more comfortable and improving their job performance, according to the survey.

Bierling fits snugly into that 78 percent: She has never felt more at peace in the office.

“It’s weird, because I’m the same person, and yet a change happened,” she said. “Friends can’t place what it is about me that’s so different, but they can tell that I’m happier than I have ever been. I know that’s due to coming out.”

But even after two years, Bierling said she’s still learning, and there’s still a lot to navigate about being female in the workplace.

'Without financial equality, there can be no equality'

When Bierling pauses copying and pasting, she lifts a hand to re-tuck her long, dirty-blond locks behind her ear.

For a time, her hair was the only connection to the woman restlessly living inside. When she started at Wells Fargo, she’d just begun growing it out. She didn’t yet feel comfortable wearing it down, opting for a tight ponytail, but she wanted to feel the strands on her neck.

My hair “was one of the little things I needed to have a connection to the real me as I put on this mask to go to work,” she said. “Every day my hair was getting longer, I felt the need to move forward as a woman.”

Bierling, originally from St. Louis, has known her whole life that she connected to her feminine side more than most biological males. But "out of fear" she pushed aside those feelings, doubling down on masculinity by playing sports and doing a stint in the Army. She moved to Des Moines to study actuarial science at Drake University and cross-dressed in private. Eventually, her need to be seen as female became too strong to keep secret.

In 2010, she came out as transgender to her wife, who has stuck by her through the transition. For four years, Bierling lived two lives: Jess at home and a man at work.

Feeling forced, whether by an employer or an internal fear, to change personas for work is a common trope for transgender people, said Sophia Stone, a transgender woman and president of the Des Moines-based transgender support group Transformations. She regularly hears stories of Transformations members spending 40 hours a week as the "wrong person."

“They don’t want to transition, for fear they may lose their job," Stone said. "And to have this whole part of your world in which you have to be another person is incredibly damaging to self-worth.”

Earning a paycheck is key to maintaining a home, feeding a family and simply being a contributing member of society, noted Jeorgia Robison, a transgender lawyer in Marion. And in America, health insurance is often tied to employment.

As with everyone else, "for trans people, the stakes of having a job are simply the stakes of living,” she said. “What do happy, successful people do? They get up in the morning, they go to work, they do their job, they make value for other people and we’re better off because they’re slugging away. Without that, it’s hard to be seen as an equal part of humanity.”

Or as the popular Facebook group Association of Transgender Professionals puts it: “Without financial equality, there can be no equality.”

Bierling suffered from a stifling fear that she would not be promoted or could even lose her job, but the despair of not being herself was on the edge of consuming her.

She started the process of transitioning at work by approaching her manager, Jennifer Weber, for a private meeting. She remembered shaking as, somehow, she got the words out: “I am transgender.”

Weber said she let Bierling speak, assuring her that transitioning was not a problem and had no bearing on her job or future positions. At Wells Fargo, headquartered in San Francisco, diversity is encouraged, she said.

“It was inspiring,” Weber said of witnessing Bierling come out. “I was really just trying to be there and be present and make sure that if anything was needed, Jess felt free to talk to me."

'I have kept a secret'

Although telling her boss felt like crossing the finish line of a marathon, Bierling would learn that it was really just the beginning of the race.

Soon after their initial conversation, Bierling, Weber and a team with Wells Fargo's Employee Assistance Consulting developed a transition plan that included having Bierling give a personal testimonial to her team and the ones she works closely with. She spoke extemporaneously to her team and read a letter to the others.

“I’ve greatly enjoyed working with Wells Fargo as I’ve done for the past two years,” she read. “But during this time, I have kept a secret … (I’m) transgender.”

Developing a workplace transition plan is absolutely necessary for the transgender person’s continued success, said Lori Fox, a transgender woman who specializes in assisting businesses with employee transitions.

“From the top down, there has to be communication and training to make sure that everyone around that transitioning person gets it,” Fox said. “They need to understand that everything in this person’s life is about to change, and they are a part of that.”

At many of her trainings, Fox runs into colleagues who, for religious or moral reasons, disapprove of their co-worker’s transition.

“We want to get across, no one is trying to change your religion or your beliefs or your politics,” Fox said. “However, when you are here in the workplace, we have a set of workplace values and a set of policies and you will abide by those policies.”

The Family Leader, an Iowa-based Christian organization, doesn’t discount that office life may be difficult for transgender people. The group believes that gender is “defined by God and revealed by nature,” said spokesman Drew Zahn, but he said the group also respects private companies’ rights to draft bylaws as they see fit.

“We encourage Christians to be faithful to their beliefs in all spheres, including treating others with civility and respect in the workplace,” Zahn said.

Corporate America has been quietly laying a foundation for transitioning employees for years, “including extending and codifying the principles of nondiscrimination into policies,” noted the 2016 Corporate Equality Index, an annual survey conducted by the Human Rights Campaign that has measured LGBT inclusion in the workplace since 2002.

In the first survey, 5 percent of corporate nondiscrimination policies featured gender identity, and none had transgender-inclusive health benefits. In 2016, those numbers were 87 percent and 60 percent, respectively.

Wells Fargo received a 100-point ranking, the highest possible, in the 2016 index. Of the four Iowa corporations that took the survey, Des Moines' Principal Financial Group and Cedar Rapids' Rockwell Collins received scores of 100. Transamerica Corp., headquartered in Cedar Rapids, and Wellmark, located in Des Moines, were rated at 90 points, losing 10 points for not having transgender-inclusive health benefits.

But there’s more work to do, especially outside the corporate world, advocates said.

Robison, the lawyer, came out to her clients dead last, after she'd come out to everyone else in her life.

“I’m self-employed, and I had dreams of my clients walking off in droves,” she said, imagining them thinking: “How can I accept counsel on serious matters from a trans woman?”

Without the wheels of corporate America, Robison created her own plan. She wrote her clients a letter — one that’s available at her practice’s front desk — titled, “What happened to Jeff?”

“You have noticed, or quite soon will notice, that I do not look like the lawyer you expected to see,” it starts. “I am a transgender person.”

'This is who I am'

When Bierling finished her personal testimonial, describing in detail how she had struggled with her gender for years, her teammates clapped and offered words of encouragement, said co-worker Anna Quanbeck.

And just before the meeting ended, Bierling told her gathered colleagues the final phase of her transition plan: When she returned from a weeklong vacation, she’d be coming back as Jess.

On that Monday, Quanbeck sent her a text message at 6:30 a.m.

“You got this,” it read.

Bierling pulled into the parking lot early and sat in her car. Dressed as female, she worked up the courage to walk from her front seat to the front door. She thought, “Can I do this? Can I actually get out of the car as female, go in and do my job?”

Just being herself was the “ultimately vulnerability,” she said.

“Regardless of how accepting or how much support you have, it’s still terrifying to step out and say, 'This is who I am,”' she said.

Bierling used the buddy system to go to the bathroom, just in case of issues (there were none), and winced when people slipped up with her name and pronouns.

“It’s really difficult for me to hear the old pronoun,” she said. “I call it the ‘two-letter pronoun’ because I can’t really speak it about myself.”

Bierling raced back to her car after that first day as Jess. Nothing bad happened, but she had been nervous all day about whether she was dressed appropriately and what people were thinking.

For that first week, it was all she could do to sit at her desk, she said. She felt like the center of attention, her least favorite place to be.

But “I slowly realized I can’t just live in the box of my cube and stay here for the rest of my life,” she said. “I have to interact with people — even if that’s hard.”

'I am free'

After work one day a week, Bierling goes bowling with the Rainbow League, a group for LGBT-identifying bowlers. It’s a safe space to be herself among like-minded people, and a place where she feels secure enough to laugh at the idiosyncrasies of transitioning in the workplace.

“It’s nice to have two years between (coming out) and now, because so much has changed,” she said. “I was talking with my teammates, and I don’t think anyone would be able to pinpoint what I looked like before. I am just so much more comfortable with myself now.”

Many large companies, Wells Fargo included, realize that employees who feel good about themselves do better work, and that inclusion allows for greater retention and innovation, said Fidas, with the Human Rights Campaign.

MORE: Trans in Iowa: An Intimate Discussion event on Thursday, October 27 at Wooly’s Des Moines

More than any previous generation, millennials are more engaged and empowered when working in an inclusive environment, according to a Deloitte study, and they value diversity as “a critical tool that enables business competitiveness and growth.”

“When you bring your full self to the table, you can relate to the work at hand and flourish and thrive so much more than if you are spending time hiding who you are,” Fidas said.

Thriving is an idea that Bierling can finally relate to. Living life as herself is like "losing 100 pounds." Not having to worry and fret — at least as much — has cleared out mental space for her to take up hobbies and new projects.

“Keeping this a secret and lying every day, it had been weighing on me, and I knew that, but I didn’t know the magnitude,” she said. “I didn’t know what this was really doing to me.

"But, now,” she said in between bowling frames, a smile spreading across her face, “I am free.”

Trans in Iowa: An intimate discussion

You’ve read The Des Moines Register’s Trans in Iowa series, now meet some of the people featured, including Jack Schuler, Renee Thomas, Jessica Brown, Kelley Kelting and other members of the LGBTQ youth group Little Rainbows.

Focusing on the realities of what it is like to live life as a transgender person, this intimate conversation will also take a look at the issues — local and national — facing this community in a deeper discussion with Donna Red Wing, One Iowa executive director, Sen. Matt McCoy, and Bob Vander Plaats and Chuck Hurley, representatives from The Family Leader.

More to come

This is the fifth of an occasional series looking into the lives of transgender Iowans.

Our next story will focus on the medical side of transition, examining transgender people’s issues navigating the health care system. If you are preparing for surgery or have recently gone through a procedure, please contact us at ccrowder@dmreg.com

Share your story

The Des Moines Register invites readers to share stories of transition in their lives. We hope to hear from a diverse array of people to show the full scope of the recent triumphs of the transgender community and the challenges it faces.

We welcome you to submit your video testimonial or written response to ccrowder@dmreg.com. Or tell us your story on social media by using #transiowa.

Read the rest of the series at DesMoinesRegister.com/transiowa.