By Cornelia Waldrum
Humans spend more collective time working than any other activity in their lives, outside of sleeping. The average human spends over 13 years of their life at work, and that doesn’t account for overtime. As a result, people’s work environment has the potential to significantly affect the overall quality of their lives.
Work is often a point of stress for all of us, but there are added stressors for transgender people struggling with stigma and discrimination because their gender identity doesn’t conform to societal expectations of gender expression.
Many transgender people feel the need to hide their true identity in the workplace or face pressures to conform to traditional gender roles. Such experiences can negatively impact people’s mental and emotional wellbeing, job satisfaction and desire to stay with a company.
“The consequences of opening up about your trans identity at work is that you open yourself up to the potential of a lot of discrimination,” Katina Sawyer, assistant professor of management at George Washington University, said. “There’s a real risk in people being authentic if their coworkers are not going to be accepting.”
The good news is that in recent years there have been notable gains in LGBTQ+ protections and support in the workplace. According to the Human Rights Council 2021 Corporate Equality Index, 71 percent of Fortune 500 companies now provide trans-inclusive health insurance coverage compared to only 34 percent in 2015. Major companies have also made public gestures of support for the LGBTQ+ community such as establishing inclusive company guidelines, donating to LGBTQ+ organizations and supporting policies like the Equality Act.
Though it is important to celebrate progress, it is equally as important to recognize that outward gestures of support must also be translated inwards to the workplace itself. There are still vast inequalities in hiring and representation of transgender employees and high reports of discrimination at work.
What does the trans work experience look like?
Representation of transgender people in the workplace is significantly lacking compared to the percentage of transgender people in the population. According to a survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, the trans unemployment rate is three times that of the national average. This underrepresentation increases the likelihood of a sense of “onlyness” and isolation for employees who may be the only one on a team of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Kris Posthuma currently works as a supervisor at a public health hospital and has made many decisions about where to work based on his transgender identity. He emphasized that because he is white and presents as masculine, he’s had more opportunities than femme-presenting trans and BIPOC are afforded. Even so, he has faced a variety of challenges navigating his trans identity at work.
All but one of Posthuma’s previous jobs have had no avenue through the application or interview process to disclose his transgender identity. There were no policies in any of the employee handbooks addressing how the organization would support transgender people who worked there, so he assumed if any issue were to arise he would be on his own.
When Posthuma first started taking testosterone, he decided to work alone overnight in order to limit his interactions with other staff. This meant that he could avoid any potential issues at work, but also meant he didn’t have any support. He chose to work in isolation in part because he had no way of letting the organization know his gender identity in the onboarding process.
During his time with a different organization, Posthuma was asked to provide services at a prison. Only one or two of his coworkers knew he was transgender at the time, and while he would have loved to work with incarcerated individuals, he experienced severe anxiety at the thought of the invasive searches and questioning that prison visits would entail. When Posthuma raised his concerns with the HR department and disclosed that he was transgender, he was met with a lot of questions and his concerns were dismissed.
“At some point [the woman in HR] asked if I ever flew, and I responded that I only flew when I absolutely had to for the same reasons I was hesitant to take any job where I would have an invasive search,” Posthuma said. “She told me that if I could fly, I could do this assignment.”
After some thought, Posthuma decided that even if it cost him his job, he would decline to work at the prison. The woman in HR continued to dismiss his fears and question his reasoning. Eventually Posthuma was excused from the assignment, but his relationship with the company was never the same afterwards and he resigned shortly after.
A survey performed in 2020 found that of the LGBTQ+ people who experienced discrimination in the past year, three in five were transgender people. Over 25 percent of transgender people reported being not hired, fired or denied a promotion because of their gender identity. Rates of discrimination are even higher for those who are at the intersection of more than one marginalized groups such as transgender people of color.
Katina Sawyer has been an activist and ally of the LGTBQ+ community for years. She has a PhD in women’s and gender studies as well as psychology and conducts research at George Washington University where she also teaches. Before proposing workplace changes, Sawyer and her team interview trans people to understand firsthand their desires and needs.
Sawyer’s research reveals that about half of transgender respondents experience discriminatory behavior due to their trans identity on a daily basis. Such behavior includes hearing transphobic remarks or feeling pressure to hide their trans identity in order to avoid being mistreated.
“I think a theme that keeps emerging in some of my experiences is silence, and feeling like I had to navigate tricky circumstances on my own,” Posthuma said. “There have been many times in my career when I could not have afforded to lose a job, so often silence was the path I chose to ensure that I would stay employed. For me, there was always the added anxiety and level of loneliness that I think can come with hiding something about yourself.”
Such experiences impact trans people’s ability to work effectively. Sawyer’s studies show experiences of discrimination lead people to feel emotionally exhausted at work and on guard around others. It creates barriers between coworkers and decreases the connectedness people feel within their workplaces.
“Things that are exhausting tend to decrease the energy you have to put toward your job,” Sawyer said. “Hiding who you are is very exhausting, feeling rejected is very exhausting. That depletes energy that you could have otherwise put towards performing your job well.”
There is a significant price to pay for ignoring these issues. A study from the Center of American Progress found that companies in the United States lose around $64 billion annually replacing employees that have left their jobs due to discrimination. Many of these workers are members of the LGBTQ+ community.
According to Sawyer, when people feel like they’re working in a place that actually cares about their employees and treats people fairly, job satisfaction increases for all workers. Trans inclusion heightens job attitudes and performance, energy and generativity. Better company culture also helps attract and retain better people.
What Does a Trans-Inclusive Work Environment Look Like?
To start, Sawyer emphasizes the importance of a top down approach to cultivating an inclusive work environment. It is difficult to create an inclusive workspace if leaders are not on board. Posthuma experienced this when working at a LGBTQ+ specific organization. His colleagues knew he was transgender, but the organization’s director was not inclusive of trans and non-binary people. At one point the director asked Posthuma why he felt like transgender people such as himself were part of the LGBTQ+ community at all.
“My bigger frustration at this job was that the organization did not have or try to have insurance that would have alleviated the cost of transition-related health care,” Posthuma said. “As one of the only LGBTQ+ organizations in the state, I was dumbfounded that demonstrating how to support LGBTQ+ people organizationally and systemically was not a priority. I felt that the executive director’s personal feelings about transgender and non-binary people steered the organization away from prioritizing these types of decisions.”
Leaders should participate in education and awareness in the office and become comfortable talking about topics surrounding gender identity and expression. When approaching these topics as an ally, it is important to come to the table willing to work with people in the trans community, to listen and receive direction rather than assume to know what is needed.
Sometimes it’s not desirable for trans people to constantly be placed in the role of educating, though it’s also not desirable to always be spoken for. Sometimes it’s not desirable for a cisgender ally to publicly chastise transphobic remarks, but it’s important to not passively tolerate discrimination either. Navigating these situations requires conversation and active engagement with trans colleagues to understand how to address each unique scenario.
“When cisgender people demonstrate oppositional courage to disrupt the status quo and stand up for trans rights, this creates positive work attitudes in trans populations,” Sawyer said. “But we add some nuance to that with more recent data which is–when it’s done with a dose of humility.”
It’s okay to enter these spaces and conversations without knowing everything. When employers are transparent about the fact that they are still learning and are open to feedback, it allows room for open and honest dialogue that leads to growth.
Policy development within the company lays the foundation for a trans inclusive workplace. A good place to start is incorporating explicit non discrimination and harrassment policies into training and onboarding to set the tone for current and future employees’ behavior in the workplace. There are many trans led consulting organizations that work with companies on making their spaces more trans inclusive.
Posthuma also recommends that companies review their current hiring practices and assess if they are truly equitable.
“There are a myriad of complex, systemic reasons why a transgender or non-binary person may have had contact with the law enforcement system, or have not followed a traditional educational path – even more so if they are also BIPOC,” Posthuma said. “There are so many resources that will help organizations adjust their hiring processes to create a better and more equitable approach to bringing on and supporting talented people that they are missing by creating meaningless barriers.”
Company training and education initiatives are crucial to increasing employees’ understanding and acceptance of their trans colleagues. One simple way to embrace gender nonconformity at work is to require all employees to include their preferred pronouns in their email signature. This normalizes gender inclusive pronouns and encourages coworkers to not assume each other’s gender and automatically attach pronouns to one another.
Appropriate bathroom access is another important issue that should be incorporated into company policy. Allowing transgender people to use the restroom corresponding to the gender with which they identify is an act of acceptance and lessens their sense of otherness. Co-workers who have an issue with sharing a restroom with trans employees should be advised to use separate facilities. An alternate approach is to offer private bathrooms for everyone to use, regardless of if they’re transgender.
Companies should also reimagine dress code policies to create a more accepting work environment. Gender neutral dress codes that allow for employees to choose from a range of options can help destigmatize varying expressions of gender.
Studies have shown that diversity and equity policies exhibited in the workplace positively impacts trans employees’ openness about their identities at work, decreases experiences of discrimination and increases the productivity of all employees. Inclusive policies let trans employees know they are valued members of an organization.
A trans friendly workspace cannot be created through company policies alone, but also by demonstrating a clear commitment to inclusivity through actions and behavior. For example, working directly with people who are transitioning and ensuring their transition at work unfolds in a way they are comfortable with.
“There are ways that people can put formal structures in place, and then there are ways that people can create informal climates that actually create that inclusive environment which then makes the policy a guardrail, but doesn’t treat the policy like it’s the ceiling of how inclusive we can be,” Sawyer said.
Having a safe, inclusive space in which to work is a basic human right that everyone should have access to, regardless of gender identity and expression. Since so much of people’s time is spent at work, it has the potential to greatly impact life outside of the workplace and how much energy people have to give to their communities and families. As a result, companies have a huge part to play in creating thriving populations of people all around the globe.
Helpful guides for employers and trans employees :
Employee training resources
Interview tips, legal support and suggestions for coming out in the workplace
Transitioning in the workplace
