Transgender Transitioning in the Workplace: How HR Can Help

A close friend recently told me that she is preparing to take the final steps of transitioning from a “she” to a “he”. As a transsexual, over the next few months (years?) she will be undergoing both hormonal treatment and sex reassignment surgery.

The news rocked my world and caused my head and heart to spin in different directions. Until this point in my life, I’ve never known a transsexual (that I’m aware of) and I felt completely ignorant on the subject.

As an HR Professional, I began to think about how transgendered people come-out in the workplace and how such a change affects both the transgendered person and their co-workers.

After much reading and study on transgendered transitioning in the workplace, I have found some common traits of successful workplace transitions. By successful, I mean things that HR can do to limit liability for the company, while helping an employee through what can most aptly be described as a ‘life changing experience’.

Steps to a successful transition

1. Have a clear diversity policy and transition plan in place, BEFORE it’s needed.
2. Include the word Gender Identity and/or Transgendered in your Diversity Statement.
3. With the employee, create a timeline and clear communication strategy.
4. When the employee is ready, HR should facilitate candid group meetings with those who will be working with the transgendered individual.
5. Emphasize in the meetings that discrimination will NOT be tolerated.
6. Keep open lines of communication with all employees throughout and after the transition. It’s in the best interest of the employee and the company to make the transition as easy as possible.

Below is a real-life example of how one transgendered person successfully transitioned in the workplace and the role that HR played in the process. Special thanks to Dr. Jillian T. Weiss, over at, Transgender Workplace Diversity, for providing many helpful articles and resources on her blog, including the following account:

(begin quote)
“I requested a meeting in September of 2002 with my boss, the Director of Operations, and our corporate HR Manager. I presented them with a letter indicating my intention to transition sometime around the end of 2002, gave them a packet of materials about transsexuality and transitioning on the job, and told them I expected my news was in the top three most interesting things they’d encountered that day.

I left the actual transition date vague and tried throughout the process to be flexible and work with my employer. I decided that I had nothing to lose and much to gain by not backing my employer into a corner.

What my employer did right: They rearranged an existing schedule for anti-harassment training so that our location would receive it before my transition was announced. They did their homework before advising top management of my plans. As I recall, they notified top management a week or two after I told them. They kept it a secret for three months until we finally announced it in early January of 2003. They called meetings with groups of co-workers on the big day and explained what was going on (I offered to attend these meetings but my employer asked me not to). We allowed a week between the announcement and my first day on the job as a female to allow co-workers to approach me as my old self with any questions.

What my employer did “less than right:” They mishandled the bathroom issue, and told me I could not use the ladies’ room. There is a unisex toilet near my office so it wasn’t inconvenient, but the principle was wrong. When I visited another of our locations they made special arrangements to show me where the unisex toilet was (a LONG way from our meeting room, which had a ladies’ room across the hall).”
(end quote)

The post is slightly edited for length. You can read the entire post here.

No matter ones personal opinion of LGBT* issues, on a professional level all HR and business leaders should understand the role of diversity in the workplace. Ignorance of such issues can be costly in terms of employee relations, public relations and in a worse case scenario, litigation.

*LGBT is an initialism commonly used to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered/transsexual people.