This article originally appeared in 1990 in Gender Expressions
magazine with the following notice:
Gender Expressions grants permission for this material to be freely copied
and distributed provided that the article is reproduced in its entirety and
this notice is retained intact.
Transsexuals in the Workplace, A Guide for Employers
by Barbara L. Chambers
Possibly you were presented this material by one of your employees, quite likely
soon after learning the employee was undergoing or had already undergone a "sex
change." Much information and misinformation abounds in the media, but
little of it is helpful to the employer in comprehending the new status of their
employee.
Also, small or new companies are unlikely to have ever encountered such a change
in status before; hopefully the text that follows will be useful and informative.
This article is written in respect to the case of the male-to-female employee;
however, most of the information applies identically to the female-to-male employee
if the sense of the pronouns and the gender-specific statements are reversed.
The remainder of this text is presented in question-answer format.
The answer to this question is best given in rather technical medical terms. Strictly speaking, a transsexual is a person with the condition known as Gender Dysphoria Syndrome, a psychiatric term which means "feeling of conflict and discomfort felt by a person due to the anatomical gender of their body."
Research indicates that Gender Dysphoria Syndrome is the psychological condition
which results from a birth defect in the matching of brain and body, similar
and perhaps related to the condition known as intersex, in which a child's body
at birth has genitalia which are not clearly either male or female or has characteristics
of both male and female. In other words, transsexuals are persons born with
a perfectly normal and healthy brain of one gender, but in a body with perfectly
healthy and normal anatomy of the opposite gender. The affected person lives
with a struggle to reconcile their natural personality, gender identity, and
body image with the physical body and social status until a time in their life
when the conflict becomes too great to bear and they seek medical help to change
their anatomy and social role.
No effective psychotherapeutic treatment for transsexualism exists, since the
only defect is the mismatch of body and brain, and a healthy gender identity
(even a mismatched one) cannot be changed; therefore the only effective treatment
is to surgically change the gender of the body to align with the person's natural
gender identity, a "sex change." Such treatment is effective in relieving
the secondary problems of depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety which often
accompany gender dysphoria, and the patient is often able to pursue a normal
life in their new gender.
Today, transsexuals are potentially valuable research subjects in the new studies of pre-birth programming of gender identity and personality into the brain during fetal development, though the rarity and desire for privacy of transsexual persons often makes the gathering of data difficult. At present, there is little agreement in the medical community as to the cause of a person being born transsexual; researchers and physicians today are largely divided into groups advancing theories of either genetic causes or fetal-development causes. Environmental conditions seem to have an effect on how long the individual is able to adapt to their reverse-gender life situation before seeking medical help to correct it. Transsexualism is rare, occurring at a rate of one in every ten thousand births. Currently, there is no known method capable of detecting the condition at birth.
There certainly are: about 45% of all transsexuals are female- to-male. Male-to-female transsexuals receive the largest amount of exposure through the media of TV and print, apparently because they are considered more "newsworthy" in our traditionally male-oriented society.
No, transsexualism has nothing directly to do with sexuality at all. The "sex"
root of the word refers to gender rather than sexual preference. This misconception,
largely disappearing today, apparently resulted from public confusion of transsexuals
with two much larger groups: effeminate homosexuals (gay males imitating feminine
mannerisms or dress as an expression of their sexuality) and transvestites (males,
usually heterosexual, who find enjoyment in wearing female clothing); neither
of these two groups has the body-identity gender conflicts which are experienced
by transsexuals and lead to an eventual change of physical gender.
Transvestites outnumber transsexuals by at least 50 to 1; gay males outnumber
transsexuals by about 900 to 1. In addition, these other two groups are composed
entirely of males only; transsexuals are nearly evenly divided between male-
to-female cases and female-to-male cases. Transsexuals, both before and following
surgery, may be heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, or celibate, with the proportion
of celibacy being somewhat higher than with the general population of women.
Transsexuals are NOT members of any known AIDS high-risk group.
Often, the employee in their new gender role is more productive and produces
higher quality work than in the past, due to the improvement in their own self-esteem
and motivation. Time off from work to recover from surgery procedures may be
necessary, however—but it should be noted that your employee will have
no need for maternity leave in the future since she will not be able to bear
children, so net time lost from work may prove to be less than in the case of
your female employees. The process of changing gender usually takes several
years to complete, with surgical, hormonal, and social changes progressing at
different rates with different individuals; you can expect a dramatic change
in her appearance and in the expression of her personality.
Your employee may already have completed much or most of the transition before
advising you.
Transsexuals are often conservative individuals and frequently set high standards
on their appearance and performance following their gender change.
If you employee is doing heavy physical work, bear in mind that her entire muscular
structure will change to female norms, and she may not be able to handle tasks
requiring physical strength as easily as she did before. (The opposite applies
to the female-to-male, of course.)
With the increased public awareness of transsexuals today, the major problem
which remains is that the employee is an object of curiosity among co-workers
for several days following her appearance in her new gender role.
Very large corporations with large numbers of employees may encounter a transsexual
employee every few years, and often set up internal guidelines. In nearly all
cases, a memo is circulated among co-workers informing them simply that the
employee will return to work at a certain date as a female employee. Some companies
call a short meeting of co-workers at which management and the employee are
present to inform them of the change and to answer any questions which may appear;
this technique is particularly effective in keeping the transition smooth.
One company (IBM) also transfers the employee laterally for several months
to a different department; at the end of that time, she is given the option
of either returning to her original department or staying in her new position.
If the employee is new to the company, sometimes no action at all is necessary,
since her former gender status may be undetectable to others, or even to management
itself.
Upon completion of her surgery, under state law in every state, she is considered to be female, and is entitled to all the considerations applying to that gender. There are differences in details of how administrative law handles such cases from state to state. Your employee will take care of any needed legal matters concerning state and federal identification papers, tax status, social security, and legal name change. Please note that your employee may now be a "double bonus" person, fitting into both the female and handicapped categories, and entitling the company to a substantial subsidy (details vary from state to state).
This article reprint is made available by The American Educational Gender Information
Service, and The Renaissance Transgender Association, Inc.
Contact Renaissance at: 987 Old Eagle School Rd., Suite 719 Wayne, PA 19087
Phone: 610-975-9119, Email: info@ren.org
http://www.ren.org