Some of the ways that TGD people get thrown to the wolves in employment

Discrimination against "transsexuality" was banned in South Australia in the 1980s, and in Victoria in 2000. My understanding (see here) is that workplace discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people is now banned in all States and Territories, as well as the Commonwealth of Australia.

That means it is harder to get away with overt discrimination, but excuses can always be found.

The biggest advantage, in my opinion, around discrimination against TGD people being banned is that it means employers are more inclined to listen when being educated on TGD issues - that's not definite, however: the Equal Marriage postal vote showed just how much savagery still exists in some very misguided, misled, judgemental/hateful souls.

There is also the issue of harassment and/or psychological abuse of TGD people in the workplace.

Thus, I want to cover a few matters that don't appear to have been specifically covered in anything to date.

Before I do that, I want to provide the following copy of an email, which I included in this post:

17^th March, 2009
Re: Implementation of HREOC recommendations regarding documents of identity

I note that the HREOC’s recently released recommendations on gender diversity (see http://www.hreoc.gov.au/genderdiversity/sex_files2009.html) include a Recommendation 7 to the effect that “Documents of identity and processes required for the legal recognition of sex should not reveal personal information about a person’s past identity in relation to sex”.

Although HREOC is a Commonwealth body, I would like to bring this recommendation in particular to your attention, as I consider the policy of the Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriage Registry with respect to name changes are not consistent with the Equal Opportunity Act (specifically, provisions regarding prohibition of discrimination on the basis of the protected attribute of gender identity), and I had intended to raise this at a later date, on the basis of using the Victorian Human Rights Charter to initiate a discussion, but may as well do so now.

The concern I have is the requirement for all previous names used since 1986 (the year may not be this year exactly) listed on the change of name documentation. This means that any person who had transitioned since that year, and wished to undertake the process known as “name harmonisation” (something which is almost a necessity, since the imposition of strict security regimes following “9/11”) can NOT do so without exposing themselves to the risks that being identified as trans may incur (because names inconsistent with the current gender would also be listed). Apart from anything else, such requirements may force trans people into discussing past, personal medical history which is irrelevant, with current employers (who may not have been employers at the time of transition).

Whilst I accept that there may be valid reasons for generally requiring past names to be divulged (eg, working with children checks), I consider that there are ways of dealing with potential concerns, and that such concerns do not outweigh the potential other problems being caused to trans people.

I request your thoughts on how this matter may best be initiated with the Victorian Government’s Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

So, the issues. The three major ones are:

• deadnaming; 
• misgendering; and 
• the apparent cluelessness of many organisations of these two issues.

I'll begin with the last point, and an extract from this article:

. . . I asked my state's blood donations service recently a simple, straightforward question: do your staff misgender trans and gender diverse (TGD) people, which is a yes/no question. Instead, I got evasive and irrelevant answers and, after multiple rounds of - to pinch an America phrase - "rope a dope", I finally got a "no, we don't misgender". (They also clearly showed that they have no idea of the differences between various TGD people, and referred to overseas research which I will now have to find and examine for transphobic bias - possibly in the language used.)

It actually took literally years, if I count the first time I asked the question, and the time taken, combined with the irrelevant answer, leaves me with an impression that those people are either:

(a) incompetent, in that they do not understand a key issue for an accepted group in society, or
(b) trying to hide their bigotry.

Those are my impressions: I may be wrong, but I'm certainly not going to endorse, use or recommend them as a result of their appallingly bad performance on that.

I had another similar experience when I raised the issue of deadnaming with the authority that will be implementing the registration of engineers process in Victoria. Instead of a simple, direct answer, I got BS that seemed to be (in my opinion) along the lines of "people change their names solely for the purposes of deception" (a variation on the trans women just want to get into women's toilets for nefarious purposes crap).

When TGD people ask questions, such as "do you misgender?" or "will you deadname", the questions aren't code or some subterfuge trying to find out something else: the questions are exactly what we're asking, so bloody well answer them!

And if you don't understand what those issues are, read on.

Misgendering is referring to a TGD person by any pronouns others than those that the TGD person says are correct. If the TGD person says "use she/her", do that; if the TGD person says "use he/him", do that; if the TGD person says "use they/them", do that; if the TGD person says some other variant, do that!

This is an employment or workplace situation: you have no right to have - well, to express, to be accurate, but I find those who have tend to "leak" their opinion through body language and so-called "accidents" - an opinion of the subject of TGD person's identification any more than you do about another workmate's ethnicity, religion, etc.

Where workplace guides tend to fall down is by hoping that generic mentions will suffice. The problem with that is: it doesn't. The problem, of course, is that it requires people to move beyond lip service. Well, guess what: if you, as an organisation, don't want to be left behind by history, you need to do exactly that. This is exactly the same as people falsely claiming to have PoC friends, or thinking it is OK to discuss why the N word shouldn't be used (are you really that backward? Do you need lessons on things kindergarten kids are learning as well?), or any of the other passive aggressive / lateral aggression behaviours that are too common.

This issue is a quick and easy indicator for TGD people: if you ask, and get an immediate assurance that misgendering dose not occur, that is a very promising sign. If you get a meaningless or generic mumble, go elsewhere, if you can. (Unfortunately, one can't when dealing with government services.)

In my opinion, misgendering of TGD people should be treated exactly the same as using the N word. In fact, I would like to see it considered as attempted murder, but that's probably a bridge too far for the legal system.

What the legal system can do, is consider this under offensive language laws - that's an argument I first heard from a TGD person 20 years ago, and has been backed a couple of times by legal sources since. However, few, if any, of us, have the resources (not just money: energy as well) to do that.

What governments can do as well is specifically indicate - e.g., in internal employment policies - that misgendering is unacceptable.

OK, so moving on to deadnaming, which is using pre-transition names.

This is also devastating for many TGD people - not all: some are OK with pre-transition names being known, but I expect them to accept that others are not OK with that, and, just as people should follow the lead of specific TGD people on the issue of that TGD person's pronouns, so too should they follow each TGD person's lead on this issue.

In employment, where this crops up as a problem is police checks (and, I understand, working with children checks). I touched on this in the above copied email. In the case of the engineering registration bill, I wound up having to get counselling to deal with the stress of having to go back to a formerly violently transphobic tertiary institute to get my testamur reissued (which I still haven't actually done - this has been a months long ordeal in the current phase, but it has been decades going back to the original transphobic responses).

Two decades ago, when we were campaigning for anti-discrimination legislation, the "solution" was for each applicant to get the police check themself, and a way was suggested that former names would not be listed on the front. The problems with that are (i) the applicant has to pay (every time they go for a job requiring this), (ii) I'm not confident police know the significance of this and would actually provide something that didn't deadname the TGD person, (iii) I'm not confident that all police would avoid deadnaming the TGD person, and (iv) it would create an unfavourable difference for the TGD person in the mind of the potential employer, and thus make them less likely to employ the TGD person.

The biggest problem with this is getting through to people why this is genuinely a valid problem for so many TGD people.

Again, governments can potentially take a lead on this by implementing internal workplace policies that specifically address this issue and say it is unacceptable. Hopefully businesses that don't want to go the way of the dodo would also both of these issues specifically in their Diversity & Inclusion policies.

Even better, I would like to see a way for TGD people - at the time of transition - apply to have all their past records changed to their post-transition name (but not for any further name changes).

OK, I'm pretty exhausted at the moment for several reasons, so I'll leave the post at that for now: there is more, much more, that can and should be written - and properly addressed.