Transexual gets ?35,000 compensation for workplace discrimination

[chiefohara]

Wow. I'm shocked by the attitudes of everyone in this thread. The article was pretty good about getting her gender right, but everyone here seems to be judging her as a 'man in a dress'. Let me present these points:

She had transitioned from male to female, and was considered to be female.

Her employer was making her dress as a male to deal with clients. Does the company not have any other women working for them? Why single her out for this treatment? Because she is transsexual that is why.

Would a cisgender woman be asked to dress like, act like and be known by a male name while at work? I highly doubt it. And there would be as much if not more of a problem for the company if they did.

They say that they asked her to work from home because 'there was an atmosphere' while she was around. Rather hypocritical because the management was the ones who caused this atmosphere by not respecting her right to transition.

Pretty much everything this company did was wrong when it comes to handling transgender employees. They were very discriminator, and Ms Hannon bent over backwards to accommodate them. They didn't even want her working for them after she came out to them, as they asked her to leave. But they were probably afraid of the backlash if they fired her outright for being transsexual. It wouldn't be the first company who didn't want to fire someone, but made their work experience a living hell to 'encourage' them to leave on their own. That has personally happened to me, until they found another bogus reason to fire me without it seeming like discrimination.

I can't speak for how much money she was awarded in this, since I don't know the particulars of her job or any of that, but the way she was treated by her company was shameful, and they fully deserved to be taken to task over it.

To be fair she wanted to leave, and they asked her to stay, and she also said the managing director was very accomodating and that she had a good relationship with him. i can understand the discomfort in her personal and professional life clashing, but if its impacting business in a negative way whats the company to do? They did everything they could to keep her on the payroll and not have it affect business.

I also said earlier, if she passed for a born female, then fair enough, the company could have compromised a little more, but if she despite her best efforts looked like a man wearing a dress... what can you expect the business do to if it was affecting clients?

 

[sleeky01]

Louise Hannon (50) from Arbour Hill in Dublin, brought a case against First Direct Logistics in which she alleged she had been constructively dismissed when she revealed her gender identity to her employer and sought to live according to it in her workplace.

And how is one "constructively dismissed"?

 

[MarkusWolfe]

It's a sticky situation for all involved. The transition period for getting your body to be as close as possible to your sexual identity is a long and difficult one. It seems to me the company did the best they could but they also couldn't compromise their own business. It doesn't change the fact that this woman was essentially told to crossdress to please a customers sensibilities. I mean, let's put in reverse, shall we? You, a man, comes into work everyday. But you're kind of effeminate looking. Well, it would make the customers uncomfortable to talk to a man like that so your boss expects you to dress as a woman and act like one. It's very, very uncomfortable to think about isn't?

If you're so effeminate that the average person would be more comfortable seeing you in woman's clothing, maybe you should be wearing woman's clothing for your own sake.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

I don't know the details beyond whats written there, but it seems a tad excessive to me. The workplace did its best to accomodate her wishes, without compromising its own business practices. The company is not responsible for other people's predjudice, and in fairness to it, did its best to continue to employ her as effectively and as senstively as it could.

Do you have any idea how touchy a business has to be nowadays with their PC rulings? Hirer too many white people? People can call you out for being racist. Higher too many non-white people? That is called reverse racism and it means you're trying so hard to not be racist by hiring a bunch of non-white people that you're being racist to white people.

If you have certain tasks that you find customers respond more positively to if a certain gender fills that roll, you're in danger in "gender inequality" if say a woman wants to work in the back room instead of being your administrative assistant despite being hired originally three years ago to be an assistant (I believe a company was sued over something similar).

Her name in the company records was her male name. If she got a legal name change (don't know if the poll change counts as one), then technically no longer works here and "Louise" is now hired in the company books. But if it's just a name she wants to use, then when she is representing the company, she should use her official name with the company, hence her male name, as that is the name associated with the position.

What probably happened with this company is a bunch of people working at the company said "You know, it is a bit odd working next to a man dressed as a woman. My clients are looking at her weird" or the clients felt it was odd to deal with her. The company is basically forced to try and take measures to rectify something, and while the paper trail takes forever to process (Yes, things like this can actually take months, sadly, and it is AND is not the company's fault) she decided it was enough.

While yes, transgenders should be treated fairly, companies have to tip toe through the tulips, daisies, daffodils, roses, and any other form of flora that you can imagine, or risk the wrath of discrimination

35,000 euro is a harsh lesson, especially if its beaurocracy thats holding things up. Not the companies fault society is the way it is, everyone makes compromise for their profession, and if the compromise this individual had to make was to work at home.... well its not asking that much i would have thought considering she was willing to compromise by resigning her job for her new lifestlye to begin with

Yes but from her point of view, she said "I'll leave" and the company said "stay, but please do this to accommodate the change" basically what she must have heard was "You work well and we want to use that, but we're too ashamed to have you showing your face" it's all in interpretation. Form her point of view if the company wanted her to work for them, it should have been 100% happy with everything she was/did.

It is a harsh lesson, but sadly I doubt it's the last time a case like this will pop up

 

[chiefohara]

Louise Hannon (50) from Arbour Hill in Dublin, brought a case against First Direct Logistics in which she alleged she had been constructively dismissed when she revealed her gender identity to her employer and sought to live according to it in her workplace.

And how is one "constructively dismissed"?

"In employment law, constructive dismissal, also called constructive discharge, occurs when employees resign because their employer's behaviour has become so heinous or made life so difficult that they may consider themselves to have been fired. The employee must prove that the behaviour was unlawful ? that the employer's actions amounted to a fundamental breach of contract, also known as a repudiatory breach of contract."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal

 

[j0frenzy]

I don't think they deserve a cent.

Wanna work at Hooters? Wear their uniform.
Wanna work at the Playboy Mansion? Wear the outfit.
Wanna work at McDonald's? Wear the gear.
Wanna work at First Direct Logistics? Dress how the owner wishes you to.

Don't like it? Don't work there.

I hate it when transsexuals use their condition like this.

This. Thousands of different jobs for thousands of different companies involve a uniform. The employer telling the employee what to wear is nothing new. Also, everything else was the company acting in their own interests while trying to be fair to their employee.

This is just like a guy getting heat for firing a Muslim construction worker because he refused to take off his turban and put on a helmet. I'm sorry pal, but if something heavy falls on you and splits your head open, not only would the company refuse to recompense you on the case that it's your own damn fault for not wearing the helmet, it's MY hide that's going to get beat for not making you wear it in the first place.

There is a difference between a safety precaution, one that the courts in the United States uphold as a reasonable incursion on religious freedoms, and a uniform. And there is a difference between just having a dress code and telling someone they don't have to quit because they are transgendered and then making their work place an unworkable environment because you are embarrassing them and making them uncomfortable because she is different. It would be a different matter if they had just asked her to leave. She wanted to leave but they asked for her to stay only for them to act against her.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

Louise Hannon (50) from Arbour Hill in Dublin, brought a case against First Direct Logistics in which she alleged she had been constructively dismissed when she revealed her gender identity to her employer and sought to live according to it in her workplace.

And how is one "constructively dismissed"?

Constructive dismissal is when you don't actual fire someone, but you make life for them such hell that they decide to quit. Pile on more work, co-workers not responding to your inquiries, your escalations for clients taking longer than everyone else. Basically you make the atmosphere so unbearable the people quit instead of you making them leave. It did NOT happen in this case.

 

[PunkRex]

I don't think they deserve a cent.

Wanna work at Hooters? Wear their uniform.
Wanna work at the Playboy Mansion? Wear the outfit.
Wanna work at McDonald's? Wear the gear.
Wanna work at First Direct Logistics? Dress how the owner wishes you to.

Don't like it? Don't work there.

I hate it when transsexuals use their condition like this.

I dont think the main problem was the clothing guy, I think it was the fact they asked her to keep calling herself a man because it would be to "confusing" and some how easier on everyone else. Surely just saying "hes a women named Louise now" would have been the most simple way of doing it.

I agree with you on uniforms though, if you dont like the way a place is run you dont have to work there, clothing, hair, tatoos, they all count.

 

[chiefohara]

I don't know the details beyond whats written there, but it seems a tad excessive to me. The workplace did its best to accomodate her wishes, without compromising its own business practices. The company is not responsible for other people's predjudice, and in fairness to it, did its best to continue to employ her as effectively and as senstively as it could.

Do you have any idea how touchy a business has to be nowadays with their PC rulings? Hirer too many white people? People can call you out for being racist. Higher too many non-white people? That is called reverse racism and it means you're trying so hard to not be racist by hiring a bunch of non-white people that you're being racist to white people.

If you have certain tasks that you find customers respond more positively to if a certain gender fills that roll, you're in danger in "gender inequality" if say a woman wants to work in the back room instead of being your administrative assistant despite being hired originally three years ago to be an assistant (I believe a company was sued over something similar).

Her name in the company records was her male name. If she got a legal name change (don't know if the poll change counts as one), then technically no longer works here and "Louise" is now hired in the company books. But if it's just a name she wants to use, then when she is representing the company, she should use her official name with the company, hence her male name, as that is the name associated with the position.

What probably happened with this company is a bunch of people working at the company said "You know, it is a bit odd working next to a man dressed as a woman. My clients are looking at her weird" or the clients felt it was odd to deal with her. The company is basically forced to try and take measures to rectify something, and while the paper trail takes forever to process (Yes, things like this can actually take months, sadly, and it is AND is not the company's fault) she decided it was enough.

While yes, transgenders should be treated fairly, companies have to tip toe through the tulips, daisies, daffodils, roses, and any other form of flora that you can imagine, or risk the wrath of discrimination

35,000 euro is a harsh lesson, especially if its beaurocracy thats holding things up. Not the companies fault society is the way it is, everyone makes compromise for their profession, and if the compromise this individual had to make was to work at home.... well its not asking that much i would have thought considering she was willing to compromise by resigning her job for her new lifestlye to begin with

Yes but from her point of view, she said "I'll leave" and the company said "stay, but please do this to accommodate the change" basically what she must have heard was "You work well and we want to use that, but we're too ashamed to have you showing your face" it's all in interpretation. Form her point of view if the company wanted her to work for them, it should have been 100% happy with everything she was/did.

It is a harsh lesson, but sadly I doubt it's the last time a case like this will pop up

Fair enough, i can see the problems a little more clearly now... but to be honest after reading this, if i was an employer and a transgendered employee asked me if they could leave... i'd let them go.

 

[JabberwockyAi]

If you're so effeminate that the average person would be more comfortable seeing you in woman's clothing, maybe you should be wearing woman's clothing for your own sake.

That wasn't the point. The point was that it's humiliating for a person to dress as the opposite sex if they do not identify as that gender (or are a transvestite). I'm sure you wouldn't want to be working in my pink summer dress and open-toe stilletoes but if I was your boss and told you that is how you had to dress to put the customers more at ease, you'd probably tell me to fuck off. Or maybe not you specifically. But many men would.

It's called a double standard.

 

[MarkusWolfe]

I don't think they deserve a cent.

Wanna work at Hooters? Wear their uniform.
Wanna work at the Playboy Mansion? Wear the outfit.
Wanna work at McDonald's? Wear the gear.
Wanna work at First Direct Logistics? Dress how the owner wishes you to.

Don't like it? Don't work there.

I hate it when transsexuals use their condition like this.

This. Thousands of different jobs for thousands of different companies involve a uniform. The employer telling the employee what to wear is nothing new. Also, everything else was the company acting in their own interests while trying to be fair to their employee.

This is just like a guy getting heat for firing a Muslim construction worker because he refused to take off his turban and put on a helmet. I'm sorry pal, but if something heavy falls on you and splits your head open, not only would the company refuse to recompense you on the case that it's your own damn fault for not wearing the helmet, it's MY hide that's going to get beat for not making you wear it in the first place.

There is a difference between a safety precaution, one that the courts in the United States uphold as a reasonable incursion on religious freedoms, and a uniform. And there is a difference between just having a dress code and telling someone they don't have to quit because they are transgendered and then making their work place an unworkable environment because you are embarrassing them and making them uncomfortable because she is different. It would be a different matter if they had just asked her to leave. She wanted to leave but they asked for her to stay only for them to act against her.

They didn't act against her; they found a way to keep her on the payroll without having her in a situation where other peoples prejudices might interfere with their business.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

I don't think they deserve a cent.

Wanna work at Hooters? Wear their uniform.
Wanna work at the Playboy Mansion? Wear the outfit.
Wanna work at McDonald's? Wear the gear.
Wanna work at First Direct Logistics? Dress how the owner wishes you to.

Don't like it? Don't work there.

I hate it when transsexuals use their condition like this.

I dont think the main problem was the clothing guy, I think it was the fact they asked her to keep calling herself a man because it would be to "confusing" and some how easier on everyone else. Surely just saying "hes a women named Louise now" would have been the most simple way of doing it.

I agree with you on uniforms though, if you dont like the way a place is run you dont have to work there, clothing, hair, tatoos, they all count.

AS explained in a previous post, say her name was Hermon. Hermon Hannon, before the change. Now if Herman Change their name to Louise, the company needs to reflect this, paperwork. Rather than do this, they asked if she could use her male name while working with outside agents. Why? Because Hermon Hannon had that position, not Louise Hannon. Mrs. Hannon could have said "No, I will not do this for you, this is my name now" but she went with it.

The sad part in this case is that the company was attempting to make concessions that worked with its clients, and Louise was against those, but when with them for a time anyways, then decided NO!

Now say I get a job as an accountant. I am told I need to wear a suit and be presentable in said suit to all outside clients. I tell my boss "Look, I love t-shirts, I hate suits. I'll leave" and they ask me to stay, saying "You can wear a t-shirt, as long as you are presentable to outside clients in a suit and tie" so I agree for a while.

Now my co-workers are getting wierded out. My boss says he's got complaints. People aren't comfortable around me as I don't wear a suit around the office in a professional environment. I can stay with the company if I work from home. I agree and go home. After 4 months I decide FUCK THIS and sue the company.

This is the EXACT same circumstance without me being transgendered on it. I don't like suits, she wants to be a woman. That's the only difference. No one's rights are being stepped on any more than the other, but people would call me absurd and fight for her.

The article doesn't give all the information though, so you have no idea what was said between them or the actual reason for why she was sent home, just what was decided. Doesn't mean it's the facts, but this is what speculation tells me

 

[nekoali]

ugh. Forum ate my post.

I was mistaken and misunderstood the part where she wanted to leave the company and was asked to stay... So that is a different light, but if they wanted her to stay, they should have accepted her as a woman and not insisted she continue to work as a man...

I'm also disgusted by these thoughts that if someone passes well, it's okay, but if they don't pass so well they should just keep pretending to be the wrong gender. I know plenty of cisgendered men who are effeminate, but they aren't asked to dress like women for work. And plenty of masculine looking cisgender women who are still treated like women. As was said before, it is a double standard to expect a transgender person to continue living in the wrong gender because you are made uncomfortable because she 'looks like a man in a dress'.

And people are assuming that she looks like that anyway. I see no pictures of her anywhere. For all we know she could be gorgeous. Transitioning at 50 doesn't mean you look ugly. I have a friend who transition when she was 50, and she looks completely like a cisgender woman. Even knowing she is trans, you can't tell at all.

And edit for those who keep saying that the company has a right to dictate how people dress, or that she was not following the given dress code: That's apples and oranges here. It doesn't apply. A company who has a dress code that requires everyone to wear men's clothing, even the women, would be taken to task. But that is not the case here. She was not asked to wear a certain uniform. She was asked to deny her true gender. Completely not the same thing.

Consider this, for all the guys out there. Supposed your boss decided that it was dress code now that everyone, guys and girls alike, had to wear skirts and heels. How well do you think that would go over. And even more so, supposed it wasn't everyone, but just YOU who they told have to crossdress. Nobody else in the company, just you. How would you feel about that? How would you feel about it four months down the road? Because that is what happened here.

 

[DRobert]

Louise Hannon (50) from Arbour Hill in Dublin, brought a case against First Direct Logistics in which she alleged she had been constructively dismissed when she revealed her gender identity to her employer and sought to live according to it in her workplace.

And how is one "constructively dismissed"?

One is constructively dismissed when one isn't told "you are fired" but put in the position where one is compelled to quit.

On the original point, good for her. I realise that for some clients it might be difficult to deal with a transgender person, but for some people dealing with an ethnic minority is unconfortable. We, as a society, shouldn't go about compromising the principles of equality just to appease the irrational prejudices of a minority. THAT would be political correctness gone mad.

As for the argument that McDonalds make wearing the uniform a condition of their employment, that's fine. Employers can impose conditions on their employees. They just need to be consistent and not arbitrary. From the report, nobody else was being told how to dress for work, so it was inappropriate for the employers to dictate how she should dress just because she was transgender (outside the obvious 'underwear inside the pants' sort of rules).

Also, someone above raised the issue of muslims wearing turbans. I think that you are thinking of sikhs.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

Louise Hannon (50) from Arbour Hill in Dublin, brought a case against First Direct Logistics in which she alleged she had been constructively dismissed when she revealed her gender identity to her employer and sought to live according to it in her workplace.

And how is one "constructively dismissed"?

One is constructively dismissed when one isn't told "you are fired" but put in the position where one is compelled to quit.

On the original point, good for her. I realise that for some clients it might be difficult to deal with a transgender person, but for some people dealing with an ethnic minority is unconfortable. We, as a society, shouldn't go about compromising the principles of equality just to appease the irrational prejudices of a minority. THAT would be political correctness gone mad.

As for the argument that McDonalds make wearing the uniform a condition of their employment, that's fine. Employers can impose conditions on their employees. They just need to be consistent and not arbitrary. From the report, nobody else was being told how to dress for work, so it was inappropriate for the employers to dictate how she should dress just because she was transgender (outside the obvious 'underwear inside the pants' sort of rules).

Also, someone above raised the issue of muslims wearing turbans. I think that you are thinking of sikhs.

The report probably wouldn't mention if anyone else was being asked to work. Having taken a multitude of Human Resources courses and a couple of internships, I can say that while she could have gotten a good severance package and raised nice awareness, I think she went overboard.

Read my posts, a lot of companies have to be very careful about such things and it really is a lose-lose for the company. They alienate clients and upset their OTHER workers, or they piss off someone and get called discriminate. It's not easy to head an HR position with so many factors. As I say in my first post, try to be too diverse and you might get hit with reverse racism.

This company was offering her solutions, she as agreeing to them, and then simply decided to sue them. I don't see 35,000 euros being justified

 

[MarkusWolfe]

Also, someone above raised the issue of muslims wearing turbans. I think that you are thinking of sikhs.

Maybe. It was from that part of the world.

Similar story: Another group (also might've been the Sikhs) has all of its members or its higher ranking members carry ritualistic knives around. As a result, they are not allowed to enter certain public buildings up here in Canada. So they arranged some meeting with the government to argue a case of religious discrimination. They never got into the meeting, because they weren't allowed to enter the building with their knives. And of course, if one of them did decide that it was worth temporarily parting with his knife to achieve justice for his brethren, the government could just dismiss all of his arguments with "Now, was that REALLY so hard?"

It's got to be the most ironic lose-lose situation I've ever seen.

 

[BonsaiK]

You started tearing the thread apart in the space of a minute, less than a minute later i made my actual post.

I was wondering did people consider the ruling excessive or not, had you waited for my post you'd have seen the direction i wanted the thread to go in.

I post based on what I see, it's not my fault that I read fast. I didn't see your follow-up post, because it didn't exist when I posted, therefore I posted based on what I saw, which was just a news article. I had no way of knowing you were going to post again. Most people post all the relevant content in the OP, they usually don't split things into two posts, because there's simply no need, therefore it's a reasonable assumption for a forum poster to make that the OP as it stands, is to be taken as is.

If you wondered whether people considered the ruling excessive, that's what you should have put in the post somewhere, but you didn't. In fact, you didn't ask that question in the follow-up post either. Nor did you put it in the thread title. I can see where you're going with it now, obviously, but you can't blame me for being a little confused about what's actually going on, at least at first. Finding a news article, highlighting it with your mouse, pressing Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V on The Escapist forums does not make interesting forum content. Presented (at the time) with only this, I made the comment that I felt was necessary. Apologies for making a comment that in the end turned out to be superfluous.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

ugh. Forum ate my post.

I was mistaken and misunderstood the part where she wanted to leave the company and was asked to stay... So that is a different light, but if they wanted her to stay, they should have accepted her as a woman and not insisted she continue to work as a man...

I'm also disgusted by these thoughts that if someone passes well, it's okay, but if they don't pass so well they should just keep pretending to be the wrong gender. I know plenty of cisgendered men who are effeminate, but they aren't asked to dress like women for work. And plenty of masculine looking cisgender women who are still treated like women. As was said before, it is a double standard to expect a transgender person to continue living in the wrong gender because you are made uncomfortable because she 'looks like a man in a dress'.

And people are assuming that she looks like that anyway. I see no pictures of her anywhere. For all we know she could be gorgeous. Transitioning at 50 doesn't mean you look ugly. I have a friend who transition when she was 50, and she looks completely like a cisgender woman. Even knowing she is trans, you can't tell at all.

And edit for those who keep saying that the company has a right to dictate how people dress, or that she was not following the given dress code: That's apples and oranges here. It doesn't apply. A company who has a dress code that requires everyone to wear men's clothing, even the women, would be taken to task. But that is not the case here. She was not asked to wear a certain uniform. She was asked to deny her true gender. Completely not the same thing.

Consider this, for all the guys out there. Supposed your boss decided that it was dress code now that everyone, guys and girls alike, had to wear skirts and heels. How well do you think that would go over. And even more so, supposed it wasn't everyone, but just YOU who they told have to crossdress. Nobody else in the company, just you. How would you feel about that? How would you feel about it four months down the road? Because that is what happened here.

If my boss said "You now have to wear a skirt and high heels" I would probably say "Why" listen to his reason, and then say "Thank you for the offer, but no thank you".

While I can appreciate her desire to want to dress as she wishes, a company dress code is a company dress code. I don't think the poll voting that she used in order to be "Louise" is considered a legal name change.

NOw if your company's dress code is "Men wear suits, women wear dresses" and she's legally a man, then they have the right to say "You're a male employee, you wear a suit" let alone the concession of "You can wear a dress, as long as you wear a suit for our clients"

Again, don't know if she had her name LEGALLY changed, but the company made concessions. It's easy to say "No, I don't want that" right off the bat, rather than agreeing to do so with the company and then saying "They humiliated me! I never wanted this!"

I just don't think she's 100% the victim

 

[Gigano]

Well, if her employer was forcing her to work as a man when she was legally a woman, then I'd say a discrimination lawsuit was in place.

I'd be pretty pissed as a man as well if any employer ever tried to force me to wear a dress. And in a clash between civil rights and a commercial interest in catering to bigots, I know full well where I'll put my money.