BEING TRANSGENDER AT WORK

From the days when discussing LGBTQ+ rights were considered taboo, the general public and the business world have come a long way. There has been remarkable progress in the way people think and discuss the issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community. The percentage of Fortune 500 companies that have gender-based workplace protection has increased from 3% to 83% between 2002 and 2017.

While the glass today is half full, there are many issues still challenging, especially for transgenders at work. Being transgender at work is easier said than done. Transgender employees face difficult choices daily between their work, personal decisions, and the balance therein.

Companies have been forthcoming in putting enough safeguards in place to ensure that an increased number of people from the transgender community become a part of the workforce. However, these safeguards have often not proved enough to bring meaningful change on the ground.

Transgender employees continue to face discrimination at the workplace. Numerous studies point toward the challenges being faced by transgender employees in the workplace.

For instance, according to a McKinsey Research, transgender employees are more likely to face challenges across the job-application process than cisgender applicants. The challenges do not end with closing the job application process. Transgender employees continue to face issues after being hired until they part ways with an organization.

Along the same lines, according to Research by the Harvard Business Review, close to 47% of transgender employees notice some discrimination daily at work. The Research further said that the discriminatory behavior faced by transgender employees puts a lot of mental stress on these employees that make them feel exhausted at the end of the day.

Employees can get some comfort around lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees. However, organizations often struggle with measures to handle the issues faced by transgender and queer employees. There has been some progress in the LGB employees, but when it comes to the TQ employees, a lot of ground still needs to be covered.

Here is all you need to know about being transgender at work, the challenges involved, and the steps companies can take to resolve them:

Challenges faced by transgender employees at work

There are a wide variety of challenges that transgender employees at the work face. Some of the key challenges include:

Employment opportunities

While companies have been able to create rules to remove barriers related to hiring transgender employees, only a few have taken the initiative to invest in actually improving the level of education and skills of the transgender community. As a result, transgender employees continue to find it challenging to find a job.

As per the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) 2020 data, compared to the 82% of cisgender adults that are part of the workforce, only 73% of transgender adults are part of the US workforce. At the same time, an increased number of transgender adults, 42% more than the cisgender adults, work part-time.

In other words, transgender adults find it challenging to find enough employment opportunities, and there have not been many initiatives to help them improve their skillset and create new opportunities. Even with similar or better education, transgender employees find it tough to find enough employment opportunities.

The not-so-transparent job application process

Getting selected for the desired job is not easy for a transgender employee. Even before the employment cycle begins, a transgender employee has to go through a lot of challenges as compared to a smooth ride of a cisgender employee.

While it is understandable that applicants may not feel comfortable coming out to the interviewer at the job application stage, the job application system is built in such a way that transgender employees find it tough to realize the openness of an organization towards gender neutrality.

As a result, many transgender employees find themselves masking themselves. These are some challenges that do not bother cisgender employees. As the job application process is built so that it favors cisgender employees, transgender employees face a fight against the wall where the organization does not even understand or acknowledge the situation it is putting transgender candidates in.

Cultural challenges

Even as a transgender employee can get the desired job, the challenges continue to increase. Compared to cisgender employees, more transgender employees feel isolated and lonely in the workplace.

Organizations may have built policies and guidelines that are expected to protect the rights of transgender employees in the workplace. However, these rules have not been able to do the task properly. As a result, transgender employees face issues like bullying, abuse, and discrimination in the workplace.

As a result, many transgender employees find it tough to bring their true selves to work. The constant microaggressions can become a mentally exhausting task for the employees to handle.

Limited career potential

Even as transgender employees handle the cultural issues at work, many transgender employees find it tough to find enough career potential for reasons beyond job performance.

Experts agree that transgender employees find it tough to find mentors, opportunities, and sponsors for their initiatives as compared to cisgender employees. Transgender employees find it tough to move up the ladder, even in organizations with a zero-tolerance policy toward gender issues.

According to a study, transgender employees in the US feel that gender identity, sexual orientation, and race are obstacles to career advancement. In such a scenario, it is difficult for transgender employees to get equal growth opportunities in an organization. Coupled with the job application process, which also needs cautious handling, the transgender employees are caught in a peculiar situation of handling career growth.

Mental health issues

As several transgender employees face challenges at the workplace, the stress adds up and has the potential to create mental health issues. Even the regular microaggressions and jokes related to gender at the workplace can make transgender feel lonely and isolated.

These instances can balloon up to create mental health issues for transgender employees. Such problems can also lead to a lack of motivation to come to work and initiate suicidal thoughts among transgender employees.

It can be a case that some employees are causing damage unknowingly, but it is a real-world problem for transgender employees struggling with the lack of knowledge in the organization in general.

What can organizations do to resolve challenges being faced by transgender employees at work?

The stress and anxiety faced by transgender employees at work is a regular feature that exists primarily because of the challenges. As a result, organizations need to work towards resolving challenges faced by transgender employees at work. Here are some of the steps that can help in resolving issues being faced by transgender employees:

Be intentional in recruiting

It is not only enough to be open to hiring transgender employees. An organization can always take the first step toward looking for transgender talent and make an effort to improve the level of education and skills in the transgender community.

Rather than waiting for the transgender talent to come knocking, you can take the first step in taking an intentional approach to recruiting transgender employees. As part of the organization's corporate social responsibility, you can run a program geared towards providing better education and imparting new skills to the transgender community.

Even if starting a new program is a long shot, you can start by participating in job fairs and recruitment events built especially for the transgender community. This will help you to learn more about the challenges being faced by the transgender community.

For instance, an organization can take the first step and set a target to hire X% of transgender employees in the workforce in the next five years. Meaningful actions can be initiated to ensure that the organization can build a pipeline of talented transgender employees to meet the goals.

Build a transparent job application process

As explained in the previous section, transgender employees find it increasingly tough to tread the job application process. As they spend time and effort masking their true self, they often struggle to be at their best during a job interview. Organizations must build a job application process that clearly explains the possible questions a transgender employee may have.

Issues like gender-neutral bathrooms, health insurance benefits, and other initiatives of the firm should be taken to protect the interest of transgender employees. It is not correct for employers to expect job applicants to ask these questions upfront in the interview process. By building a transparent job application process, an organization could create a level playing for transgender and cisgender candidates.

For instance, the employer should also ask for a preferred name rather than just asking for a legal name in the job application process. An increasing number of job application forms have moved beyond the binary sexual options of male/female and given the option for non-binary sexual choices.

Build an inclusive ecosystem

It is one thing to put the diversity statement on the website, and it is another to build a truly inclusive work culture in the organization. It would help if you made a conscious effort to build an inclusive ecosystem at the workplace. It can start with making transgender employees comfortable and enduring that all employees respect each other's rights.

The culture can be built by considering the needs and challenges of transgender employees. This will help resolve the issues transgender employees face daily at the workplace. At the same time, you can take the initiatives to help cisgender employees understand the challenges being faced by transgender employees at the workplace.

For instance, starting from the washroom that needs not be gender-neutral, policies that are in place should not name any specific genders. Several initiatives can be taken to build an inclusive ecosystem. 

Set up regular training

As organizations fail to bridge the gap between understanding the employees, transgender employees continue to face challenges at the workplace. One of the biggest hurdles in ensuring a gender-neutral culture is the absence of proper employee training. It is critical for the organization to regularly hold diversity training for the employees.

With proper training, all employees would understand the rights of transgender employees and how they should address each other. The employees can work as a team only when they know the issues faced by each other. Therefore, this training will be an integral part of building an inclusive culture in an organization.

You can also run organizational programs that motivate cisgender employees to become informal ambassadors for transgender employees at work. For instance, employees need to realize that it is better to do proper Research rather than ask intrusive questions to transgender employees. At the same time, the training has to be specific to transgender issues rather than conducting a general LGBTQ+ training. 

Have a zero-tolerance policy that works

It is not enough to say that you have a zero-tolerance policy towards gender issues. It would help if you had an actual zero-tolerance policy where transgender employees feel they have equal rights to cisgender employees.

An organization needs to be ready to take the long road to success. The organization needs to make an effort to ensure that employees adhere to the policy that has been laid out and not make microaggressions and jokes a regular feature against transgender employees. Be it pasting the zero-tolerance policy at a place where each employee understands or taking disciplinary action where required.

For instance, if you start ignoring actions against transgender employees as a mistake or a one-time affair, you have already signaled to your employees that the organization has tolerance for gender issues. Therefore, actions need to speak louder than words, and organizations must build a truly zero-tolerance approach to their actions.

Support gender transitions

Transitioning is a process, and it is expected that organizations should support their transgender employees during this phase. As someone decides to transition, it is important to realize that it has been done after much thought and soul-searching. While a transition phase may or may not involve a gender-confirmation surgery, employers should develop a comprehensive guide to handling gender transition.

This approach should not only include focusing on the employee but also developing an ecosystem that is accustomed to handling the transitioning process. Employers can take initiatives like covering the transition costs, asking transgender employees about their requirements, providing information through the HR department if required, and expecting participation from senior management to build a positive culture.

As this is a critical phase for a transgender employee, the issues faced at the workplace will only make the transitioning process more challenging and full of obstacles.

Build a support system

The organization must make a conscious effort to build a support system for transgender employees. The company could help transgender employees manage their stress better by providing the right intervention at the right time.

Several initiatives can be taken to build a support system for transgender employees, rather than expecting them to handle all the issues being faced at the workplace on their own.

For instance, an HR representative can regularly be in touch to understand the issues being faced and provide a non-judgmental view on how the issues can be resolved. At the same time, the company can organize activities like mindfulness, etc., to ensure that transgender employees can handle their stress better.

To sum up

It is important to realize that the issues being faced by transgender employees and the prejudice towards the trans community cannot be eliminated quickly. However, the organization needs to be mindful of the challenges and try to bring a structural change rather than adopting a reactive makeshift approach.

There needs to be enough checks and balances in place to ensure that the rights of transgender employees are well-protected. At the same time, employees need to work together across diversity training, cognitive behavior training, and self-compassion training to understand the issues being faced by marginalized communities and how to behave in the workplace.

It has been seen that an organization can bring a structural change, and employees can feel close to their original selves without any judgment or associated prejudice. Few organizations have been able to build a truly inclusive culture.

There are immense benefits to building an inclusive culture in an organization. Employees feel no pressure to mask their personality, so they can focus on their work rather than worrying about the attached judgments. This does not only fare well for the profitability of the business, but it is also helpful to create a legacy and culture of the organization. 

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