Being LGBT+ at Work

Most interviewees said that their employer broadly has the right policies and procedures in place when it comes to their legal commitments to equality for LGBT+ staff.  

Most had a transitioning at work policy - though often these have been published only in the last few years. 

There are clear themes of areas where staff and reps don’t think formal workplace policies are sufficient:  

• Facilities was a big theme - with too many trans and nonbinary staff being left to use accessible toilets for disabled people as a default, in the absence of gender neutral toilets or a clear and confident policy.
• Retail staff and teachers in schools described unnecessarily gendered uniforms or dress policies.
• Some workers felt their organisations needed to improve their range of gender options and pronouns on forms.
• There were some areas where interviewees felt that their employment terms and conditions could be more generous - for example, the amount of paid leave offered to cover medical procedures whilst transitioning.

“They’re getting there with the uniforms - it was easy for me to switch. But honestly - do our fleeces need to be termed male and female? It’s just that one is fitted and one isn’t. Lots of the women prefer wearing the men’s ones anyway. We could just get rid of that so easily.”
Emmanuel, delivery driver

 

“Toilets are key - I don’t want to get stereotypical - I transitioned in 1998 so believe me, I’ve been having this conversation longer than most. But honestly - just have gender neutral facilities.”
Jess, civil servant

 

“I guess I didn’t get paid sick leave for all the time I had to take off [to transition] - I took half of it as holiday. That could have been different.”
Hugo, nuclear engineer

Interviewees were clear that having an appropriate set of workplace policies is not enough - it is culture that drives real change (see section 7 for more).

Most interviewees felt that the culture of their workplace was a crucial factor in their risk of discrimination and/or harassment. The most common harms which people described included being ‘outed’ by colleagues, or being persistently misgendered. Many people also described the challenge that lazy language and assumptions by colleagues has on them - assumptions about the gender of their partner; or intrusive or offensive questions about their personal lives.  

“There is just this ‘eurgh’ when people ask what my husband does and I have to correct to: my wife. It's just a constant thing in the background. As a freelancer, you’re coming out all the time.”
Heather, costume designer in film industry

“It’s the constant comments about - you don’t know what it’s like, you don’t have children. You are always going out. When we’ve been booking holiday - I’ve had “you haven’t got any children, so we need to prioritise the other colleagues first.”
Holly, NHS,

“Managers without even thinking will just say to new staff: “you’ve got Emmanuel on your team, they’re transgender.” I have started saying to people now I'm more confident - “what are you doing, you just outed me?” They laugh it off, like it’s a joke, but I say - no, this is serious. This is people who think they're great allies - they think just because I call Emmanuel he / him, I'm fantastic. But simple misgendering, they don't realise how harmful it is.”
Emmanuel, delivery driver

“I’ve been asked how we have sex, by colleagues, in the staff room. I was shocked - it was all so new to me.”
Layla, teacher

“The problem is often the management - they try to make it inclusive, but they don’t get all the little things right. And those are big things sometimes. I remember when me and my husband were buying a house in the 90s. Amazingly at the time you had to have a clean HIV test - because they just assumed we were all about to croak it. Anyway one bank decided they’d be the first to abandon this - and we were the first couple to get a mortgage through them. They got a TV crew in and filmed it live on air - us sitting with the clerk, giving over our details. And as it was happening - the clerk, her face just went whiter and whiter and she just creaked to a halt, on air. It turned out their computer system wouldn’t let her input two “Mr”s in. Very embarrassing - of course for us, we saw that sort of thing on forms all the time, but no one in their office had realised. God, we laughed”.  
Henry, headteacher