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Network Journal Issue 02 |
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Focus on rights for transgender workers
Few people actually appreciate that over the last 30-40 years, more than 5,000 people in Britain have successfully transitioned between the genders – from male to female, or from female to male. Transsexuality is an internationally recognised condition.
On this page we consider the rights of these workers.
Transgender people feel that they have been born in the wrong sex. Around one in 11,000 people are transgender and around 6,000 people in the UK have already undergone gender reassignment surgery.
So, how does it feel to be transgender? It can mean feeling powerless, deeply unhappy at not being the person you really are or want to be. It takes an incredible degree of courage, and often many years of unhappiness, to admit to yourself, and others, that you are in the wrong sex.
Some transgender people realise during puberty that there is something wrong and they are a little different. Others may get married, have children and may not begin to deal with the matter until their forties, fifties or even after they retire.
Transgender people have two choices on how to change their lives - by adopting the clothes and name of the sex they believe they should be or by undergoing gender reassignment surgery and drug treatment. Wearing the clothes of the sex you want to be can lead to discrimination and harassment at work and in the community. Surgery is an expensive and physically demanding process. Getting treatment on the NHS can prove impossible, with many transgender people forced to seek treatment overseas.
Usdaw reps are involved in representing and supporting transgender people at work. Reps are helping to challenge prejudice and making sure that 'so-called' jokes and inappropriate behaviour are dealt with in just the same way as racist, sexist or homophobic abuse. But it's not just harassment and bad taste jokes that affect transgender people in the workplace. Other issues such as dress codes and the use of single sex facilities are important too.
Employers should show some flexibility in dress codes to accommodate the process of transition from one sex to another. They have an obligation to do this under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which prohibits discrimination on grounds of appearance. Practical details, such as who pays for a new uniform (if this is required as a result of gender reassignment), should be dealt with according to the employer's usual policy on similar issues (for example, weight gain or loss) or negotiated for the employee by the trade union.
There should be agreement on what point the use of single sex facilities, such as changing rooms and toilets, should change from one sex to the other. An appropriate marker for the use of facilities of the employee's 'new' sex is likely to be the change in social gender. It is not acceptable to insist that a transgender employee should be asked to use separate facilities such as a disabled toilet.
Transsexual women should be admitted to any spaces or resources reserved for 'women only'. It is unacceptable to treat a person as belonging to neither one sex nor the other for employment purposes, either for a period of time or for life.
- For further information, contact Ruth Cross or Jo Bird in the Women and Equalities section or look at the Press for Change (an organisation campaigning to raise awareness of the rights of transgender people) web site.
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