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Introduction
Gender transition and gender affirmation can be an incredibly vulnerable time in a transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, genderfluid, or nonconforming person’s life.
This journey can bring about anxieties about job security, fears of adverse workplace treatment, and confusion about how to communicate or even begin a transition in a workplace environment.
We encourage workplaces to have processes and policies in place to provide transgender and gender-expansive team members the support they need to facilitate a workplace transition.
Fundamental Insights: Gender Transition and Affirmation
There Are No Absolute Answers
Gender transition and gender affirmation are not binary; they cannot be defined by a singular moment when someone ceases to live as one gender and begins to live in their authentic gender.
Every Journey is Different
Organizations should customize their approach to each person’s unique needs, concerns, and circumstances.
Embrace Self-Identification
A transgender or gender-expansive person should always be treated as the gender they identify with regardless of legal documents, medical transition, or sex assigned at birth.
Respect Boundaries
Transgender or gender-expansive individuals have the exclusive right to decide when and how they share their gender identity. There should be no requirement for team members transitioning or going through a gender-affirming process to share unless legally necessary. Transgender or gender-expansive status should be kept confidential until the individual gives consent or chooses to share more information with the team.
How Organizations Can Support Trans Team Members
Organizations should establish a transparent process involving multiple stakeholders and clear communication with staff.
For example, this can include collaborating with managers, LGBTQIA2+ Employee Resource Group (ERG) leaders, members of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and Human Resources (HR) staff. Together, they can create an individually-tailored plan for the team member's workplace transition or gender-affirming process and provide ongoing support.
It's important to note that the immediate manager and an HR representative should eventually be part of the support team, but they don't necessarily need to be involved from the outset. Initially, the transitioning team member should be connected with a designated point of contact who will be available to assist them during their gender transition or gender affirmation process.
This designated point of contact serves as a resource for the transgender team member, ensuring that they have someone to turn to in case they encounter obstacles, resentment, bias, harassment, discrimination, hostility, exclusion, or ignorance during or after their transition.
Finally, it is crucial for the organization to proactively establish a foundational understanding of gender, gender expression, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality among its workforce. This foundational understanding helps to create a more inclusive workplace culture and ensures that all team members are treated with respect and dignity throughout their professional journey.
Facilitating Workplace Changes With Trans Team Members
The designated point of contact should also aid the team member transitioning or going through a gender-affirming process to prioritize their chosen name in all legally permissible spaces. This may include but is not limited to:
- Email Address
- Nameplate
- Name Tag
- Access Badge
- Website Biography and Headshot
- Organizational Directory
- Authorship Recognitions
- Company Templates
- Internal Documents
- Team Tools (Slack, Asana, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, WebEx, Google Workspace, Salesforce, 1Password, etc.)
- Human Resources (HR) System
- Payroll Management System
- Health Insurance Documents
- Workforce Diversity Reporting
Support Beyond the Professional Setting
A transgender or gender-expansive person who changes their name and/or gender may desire to reflect these updates in the following places outside of a strictly professional setting. If possible, organizations should provide support to help facilitate or provide guidance relating to these updates.
- Passport
- Driver’s License
- Birth Certificate
- Health Card
- Photo Identity Card
- Marriage License
- Death Certificate
- Social Insurance Card
- Social Security Card
- Indigenous Status Card
- Selective Service Registration
- Immigration Documents
- Voter Registration
- Military/Veteran Records
- Bank Accounts
- Debit and Credit Cards
- Credit Reports
- Home Insurance
- Car Insurance
- Professional Licenses
- Degrees
- Credentials
- Publications
- Awards
Be Thoughtful About Communications
Every team member will have different preferences for how, when, or if they want official communication about their transition or gender-affirming process. They will have different comfort levels with who they want to share the information with and how much they want to share about their journey.
Some team members may prefer their direct supervisor or a People Leader to communicate relevant details to appropriate team members. This approach can help establish a more decisive tone, demonstrate team support, and alleviate some of the burden associated with the process for the transitioning individual.
Some team members may want to communicate all relevant details themselves via an email, short one-on-ones, or a team meeting to make the process more personable and humanizing.
Some team members might want to use both methods. They may want to share some information about their gender transition or gender-affirming process and have an appropriate representative sharing expectations. These can include empathy, flexibility, sensitivity, respect, respect for pronouns, and adherence to anti-harassment policies.
All these decisions should be up to the team member, and workplaces can present them as options.
A Team Member May Consent To Share These Things
Every transgender and gender-expansive team member is different and may find it useful to give varying degrees of context to their colleagues about their journey. In communications to a senior leader or the general team depending on organization size, structure, and culture, a team member may consent to share:
- The date when the transition will officially and formally occur (may be the same day).
- Their true gender alongside their chosen name or pronouns.
- How their presentation may be changing (e.g. clothing, accessories, voice, mannerisms, makeup, haircut, appearance, etc.).
- The restrooms and facilities they will be using.
- Any organizational records (e.g. directory), photographs, and places they are updating their name or gender they feel are relevant to ensure effective collaboration and communication with the team.
- The dates of a possible medical leave where they will be out of office (e.g. gender-affirming surgeries, treatments, etc.). Remember that the transitioning team member should not be expected to share any specifics around their medical leave.
Keep in mind, some team members have a more fluid sense of their gender and how they want to express it over time. Team members may want to communicate that these dimensions may change over time.
They may have a different and less fixed set of expectations for their co-workers (e.g., be flexible and affirm their fluidity and the spaces they feel most comfortable in at a given time, their variable gender presentation, and how they want to be referred to in given instances).
They may wish to communicate that they are currently engaged in an ongoing discernment process regarding their gender identity, and that this exploration may involve trying out different expressions of gender in both their personal and professional life.
Consider Avoiding This During a Colleague’s Transition
It’s important that every team member takes action to educate themselves on behaviours that may cause unnecessary discomfort or harm to a team member going through a transition or gender-affirming process.
Try to avoid the following:
- Sharing someone’s transgender or gender-expansive status with a new colleague or client without consent from that team member. This is also called “outing.”
- Asking to know someone’s previous name or sharing their previous name with a new colleague. This encourages “dead-naming” or referring to someone by a name that no longer reflects who they are.
- Asking to view pictures of someone prior to their transition. This can be triggering and invalidate all the efforts they have made not to present or be viewed in that way anymore.
- Equating non-binary gender with younger generations. People of all ages are non-binary and genders beyond the binary have existed across all cultures for centuries.
- Asserting that the use of the singular they is “grammatically incorrect” when it is actually affirmed by leading style and grammar authorities and used by most English-speakers in everyday life (e.g. “Who left their folder on the table?”)
- Treating gender nonconforming expression and dress as “unprofessional.”
- Inquiring about any medical procedures or processes someone has gone through or plans to go through. This is private information and inappropriate to pry about.
- Inquiring about what reproductive organs someone has or referring to people using reproductive terms like “male” and “female” instead of “man” and “woman.”
- Implying that a transgender or gender-expansive person is actually just a really feminine queer man or a really masculine queer woman instead of their true gender.
- Implying that a transgender or gender-expansive person is more valid if they knew their identity as a child.
- Implying that being a transgender or gender-expansive person is strange, confused, mentally ill, or immoral.
- Implying that transgender and gender-expansive people cannot also be people of faith (e.g. Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc.).
- Telling a transgender or gender-expansive person that you “could not even tell.” This implies that someone’s gender is more valid if they “pass” or when someone is initially perceived as their true gender instead of their sex assigned at birth by others.
Check out Feminuity’s Inclusive Language Guide for more tips on communicating in unbiased in affirming ways for people of all genders.
Celebrating Gender Diversity
As an organization, you can help proactively create a more welcoming and safe workplace for transgender and gender-expansive team members by communicating your support and creating meaningful programming during times of significance.
Some days and times you can strategize around include:
- Transgender Awareness Month
- Transgender Day of Visibility
- Transgender Day of Remembrance
- Non-Binary People’s Day
- Pronouns Day
- Trans Parents Day
- International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia
- National Coming Out Day
- LGBTQIA2+ History Month
- Spirit Day
- Day of Silence
- LGBTQIA2+ Pride Month
Glossary
Cisgender: Individuals whose gender aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Gender: Socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that society deems masculine, feminine, or androgynous. This social construct is often linked to and confused with the biological construct of sex.
Gender-Affirming Process: Refers to an interpersonal, interactive process whereby a person goes through gender-related changes (e.g. medical, legal, social, relational, spiritual, personal, presentational, expressive, etc.) and receives social recognition and support.
Gender Binary: A social construction of gender in which two distinct and opposite genders are determined by a person’s sex assigned at birth: male/masculine/men and female/feminine/women.
Gender-Expansive: A term that encompasses genders that are not exclusively “man” or “woman” and includes agender, bigender, demigender, genderfluid, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, non-binary, omnigender, pangender, third gender, trigender people, and more.
Gender Expression: A person’s presentation of their gender. These outward expressions of gender can be intentional or unintentional and involve one’s mannerisms, clothing, hair, speech, and activities (and more!).
Gender Identity: A person’s deeply felt and innate sense of their own gender: being a man, a woman, a girl, a boy, non-binary, fluid, in between, or outside of the gender binary. This may or may not correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth.
Gender-Neutral / Gender-Inclusive Pronouns: A gender-neutral or gender-inclusive pronoun is a pronoun that does not associate a gender with the individual who is being discussed. The most common gender-neutral pronouns in the English language are They, Them, Theirs, but different people embrace other gender-neutral pronouns such as Ze, Hir, Hirs.
Genderqueer: An identity term for a person who may not identify with and/or express themselves within the gender binary.
Mx: Pronounced as “mix” or “miks,” is an honorific (i.e., Mr., Ms., Mrs., etc.) that is gender neutral. It is often the title of choice for folks who do not identify within the gender binary. E.g., Mx. Jefferson is a great teacher.
Non-Binary: This term refers to people who experience their gender identity and/or gender expression as falling outside the categories of man and woman. Several other terms describe gender identities outside the man/woman binary, such as genderqueer, nonconforming, genderfluid, gender-expansive, agender, bigender, etc. Non-binary people may or may not identify as transgender.
Nonconforming: Refers to individuals who do not adhere to society's gender norms. People may describe themselves as nonconforming if they don't conform to the gender expression, presentation, behaviours, roles, or expectations set forth for what is assumed to be their gender. Non-conforming people do not necessarily ascribe to a particular label or can reject gender-related labels altogether.
Out: Out refers to a state of being after someone has publicly disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity. This process is usually known as “coming out.” Coming out is an ongoing process for LGBTQIA2+ people who will make decisions about which circles and spaces they feel comfortable sharing their identity in. “Outing” someone is when a group or individual shares the queer identity of another person without their consent, which is a violation of their privacy and can open them up to stigma, prejudice, and discrimination.
Questioning: The process of exploring and discerning one’s own gender identity, gender expression, and/or sexual orientation. Some people may also use this term to name their identity within the LGBTQIA2+ community.
Sex Assigned at Birth: The sex listed initially on someone’s birth certificate that is typically assigned at birth based on a brief medical examination of the body and is usually classified as either male or female. This designation often determines the gender a child will be raised as. However, more and more jurisdictions are enabling intersex designations on birth certificates as well.
Transgender: This umbrella term refers to people who identify with a gender different from the sex assigned to them at birth. It is often abbreviated to trans.
Transition: Transitioning is the process of taking actions to live as one’s true gender identity. Transitioning is different for each individual, is not necessarily binary, and may or may not involve medical interventions like taking hormones or having surgery. Gender transition affects all areas of one’s life: home, school, family, and work.
Transphobia: The irrational fear and hatred of transgender, non-binary, genderfluid, and non-conforming people.
Two-Spirit: This umbrella term, proposed in 1990, bridges Indigenous and Western understandings of gender and sexuality. Two-Spirit is another role shared among most North American Indigenous people that have a proper and respected position in most Native societies. Each nation’s understanding of sexual and gender diversity varied widely and was grounded in different spiritual beliefs.
Resources
- A Guide to LGBTQIA2+ Workplace Inclusion (Feminuity)
- Supporting Sexual and Gender Diversity in the Workplace (Feminuity)
- Workplace Transition Policy Guidelines (Mozilla)
- Model Transgender Employment Policy (Transgender Law Center)
- Gender Transition Guidelines (Human Rights Campaign)
- Workplace Gender Identity & Transition Guidelines (Out & Equal)
- How HR Can Support Transgender Employees (Society for Human Resource Management - SHRM)
- Making Gender and Name Changes on Identity Documents (Canada)
- Identification Documents and Transgender People (United States)
- What’s Your Pronoun? Strategies for Pronoun Inclusion in the Workplace (Out & Equal)
Important Note
This resource is not meant to be a static guide, but rather a compilation and reflection of our learnings to date. Everything changes - from technologies and innovations to social norms, cultures, languages, and more. We’ll continue to update this resource with your feedback; email us at hello@feminuity.org with suggestions.
About the Author(s)
This resource was written collaboratively by members of the Feminuity team.
Give Credit Where Credit’s Due
If you wish to reference this work, please use the following citation:
Feminuity. "A Guide to Gender Transition and Gender Affirmation In the Workplace"
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