Check Your E-Mail: Bob’s Livening Up the Loop

WASHINGTON — Most government e-mail is exceptionally dull. But the one circulating last week in the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division raised a few eyebrows.

The official e-mail, sent to 300 support staff and lawyers, outlined an impending change in the life of one environmental lawyer. Specifically, Bob, a veteran attorney, will be “living full time” as Pamela after Aug. 23 and a “medically supervised gender transition.”

The division’s senior managers “have expressed support for Bob’s decision,” the e-mail said. Everyone’s entitled “to our own personal thoughts and beliefs,” it went on, but the department is “committed to a safe and healthy” workplace where folks of “diverse backgrounds and beliefs can work free of harassment, intimidation or discrimination . . . and can contribute to the overall success of our efforts.”

Bob’s been a skillful litigator, we are told, and will “no doubt continue to perform at a high level after he assumes his . . . new name of Pamela.”

Management is “working to support Bob . . . and to address this transition in a dignified and sensitive manner. We ask that you do the same.”

A note from Bob, attached to the e-mail, says he always wanted to be a private person but “some things can’t be helped.”