You don't have to understand it to show understanding

The reason for this article is the news that KLM has officially included gender transition leave in its staff policy. Employees who are transitioning can take up to 24 weeks of special leave, spread over a period of ten years. That leave can be used for appointments and treatments, recovery after a medical procedure and other steps involved in a transition.

Luchtvaartnieuws reported on the introduction of the policy, and Up in the Sky also covered it.

On KLM's own Careers website, the internal LGBTQIA+ network Over the Rainbow had previously said that it was campaigning for such an official policy. Without it, employees depended on the flexibility of their manager.

My first thought when I saw the news was actually simple: how good that an employer makes room for this.

But then I opened the comments under the Luchtvaartnieuws post on Facebook.

Among other things, I read:

“This country really is getting crazier. Everyone should do what they want, but for an employer to give leave for that is complete madness.”

Someone else wrote:

“And the passengers are the ones paying for this nonsense.”

And another person:

“This country gets crazier by the day.”

Up to that point, you could still say: people are criticising an employment benefit. But further down, KLM is called a “woke organisation” and another comment ends with the words “filthy fucking rainbow idiots”.

At that point, it is no longer about whether 24 weeks of leave is a lot or a little.

And that is exactly something that has bothered me for years.

Because this blog is ultimately not about KLM. This news story is only the reason for something that concerns me much more broadly. Almost every time a news story touches on gender identity, transgender healthcare or transgender people, I see the same thing happen online.

The actual subject hardly seems to matter. Whether it is healthcare, sport, education, pronouns, an employment benefit or simply a transgender person appearing in the news, the comments quickly fill with words such as “woke”, “madness” and “attention seeking”. People shout that care should be banned, should not be reimbursed or that someone should simply accept the body they were born in. And it does not always stop there; it regularly turns into outright hate.

Where is the empathy?

I find that recurring pattern perhaps even more disturbing than the comments under one particular news story. Of course there is nothing wrong with criticising policy. But why does a subject involving gender so often become an excuse to ridicule the people themselves, minimise their problems or dismiss their existence as nonsense?

Of course you can debate a policy such as KLM's. Why 24 weeks? How is it applied? How does it compare with other forms of special leave? All legitimate questions.

But it often does not stop there. The discussion rapidly shifts from criticism of policy to not taking seriously the people for whom that policy exists.

That affects me.

I am not transgender myself, so I do not know what it feels like when your gender identity does not correspond with the sex you were assigned at birth. I do not want to pretend that I do.

As a member of the queer community, however, I do know what it is like not to fit the standard in an important part of your life. To first have to understand and accept yourself while also knowing that the outside world is going to have an opinion about it.

My experience is not the same as that of a transgender person. But perhaps that experience makes it easier for me to understand how important acceptance can be.

A transition usually does not begin on the day someone starts using hormones, takes a different name or undergoes medical treatment.

Years may come before that. Sometimes decades of doubt, uncertainty, shame, denial or trying to meet what the outside world expects from you. Not every transgender person follows the same path and not everyone chooses medical steps. But for many people, an enormous personal struggle comes first.

And once you finally reach that point, the outside world still comes next.

Telling family, friends and colleagues. Seeking help. Having conversations. Perhaps undergoing medical treatments and recovering from them.

And meanwhile, you read online that it is “nonsense” and “madness”.

Consider yourself fortunate

What I find especially difficult is how quickly people judge something that another person may have struggled with for years.

If you have never had to spend a single second wondering whether your body fits who you are, consider yourself fortunate.

If you have never spent years struggling with your gender identity, be grateful for that.

But do not turn what feels self-evident to you into proof that someone else's problem does not exist.

The fact that you do not feel something does not mean someone else cannot feel it. The fact that you do not need certain care does not mean someone else should not be allowed to need that care either.

I do not need to have had depression to understand that someone with depression can suffer severely. I do not need to use a wheelchair to understand the importance of accessibility. And I do not need to be transgender to take seriously someone who says they have struggled with their identity for years.

That is called empathy.

Those 24 weeks are not a holiday

The headline “KLM employees get 24 weeks of leave for gender transition” also needs some context.

This is not 24 weeks of extra holiday. It is a maximum of 24 weeks spread over ten years, for different parts of a transition.

According to Luchtvaartnieuws, employees could already apply for special leave before. The difference is that KLM has now made it official policy. This means an employee is no longer dependent on how understanding or flexible an individual manager happens to be.

You are still free to think that 24 weeks is too much. Fine.

But at least try to understand why there is a need for such a policy.

That is what I miss when I read comments such as “the passengers are the ones paying for this nonsense”.

Why is the first response immediate outrage? Why not first ask what someone actually has to go through before they need such leave?

Behind the news is a human being

Whether it concerns transition leave, transgender healthcare, sport, education or another subject involving gender, behind the words, headlines and policy discussions are real people.

Someone who may have felt for years that something was not right. Someone who tried for a long time to push that feeling away. Someone who eventually found the courage to seek help and begin living as themselves.

And that person then reads online that their care is “nonsense”, that an employer has “lost the plot” when it takes transgender employees into account, or even that people from the rainbow community are “filthy fucking rainbow idiots”.

Try to imagine what that does to someone who may already have spent years struggling to accept themselves.

As a queer person, I know how valuable it is when the world around you does not try to tell you who you should be, but simply gives you the space to be yourself.

You do not have to know what it feels like to be transgender.

I do not know either.

But you can accept that an experience you do not know yourself can be very real for someone else.

Perhaps we should therefore be a little less quick to shout that something is “madness” or “nonsense” and a little more willing to listen to the people it actually concerns.

And when their problem is so far removed from your own life that you can barely imagine what it feels like, realise above all how fortunate you are that you have never had to fight that battle.

That should not be a reason to minimise someone else's problem.

It should be a reason for a little more understanding.

Everyone here is a work of art.

Dave from GUNDERWEAR