Transexual gets ?35,000 compensation for workplace discrimination

[HentMas]

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It's not a good thing and it's not fair but the company was in one hell of a position. It's an unfortunate fact that people would have been a little baffled and distracted. That's not the way it should be but it's the way it unfortunately is. From what the article implies she was a good employee and I'm sure they wanted to keep her on, it's just one of those occasions when they're either going to lose sales or get sued.

My mum's left several B2B sales jobs and clients have followed her, clients get attached to their sales rep and so if this woman left she may well have taken business with her, if she stayed and went through that rather unfortunate stage transsexuals have to then she could have lost customers and by ignoring her status they were risking legal action.

As it happens I think they jumped the wrong way but bloody hell, that's not a fun position for them to be in.

you actually raised an important matter, sales rep over corporal image, thats why we, at my business, try to create an image in all of our departments, if anyone ever needs to have any kind of contact with a customer, we make sure he is not going to get all "Microsoft help center" on them (a common example on bad customer service, but you get my point)

so the customer doesn't actually "buys" from our "sales rep", he buys from the secretaries, the storage workers, the guys that deliver their stuff, me, everyone, and if they have anything to complain i personally scold the guy that made the mistake (or take the appropriate measures).

we don´t sell our products, we sell our service as a whole

so to make my point yeah, the company is wrong, but in several different levels, not just because of what they did to that girl

 

[Arafiro]

I think she/he put the company in a very difficult position and had I been the manager I would have been bricking it trying to work out how to get rid of her/him so as to avoid this very thing.

 

[nekoali]

Sigh... I just love how someone standing up for their basic human rights is somehow seen as demanding some sort of special favors or infringing on other people's rights.

Ms Hudson was a woman who had the misfortune of being born to the wrong sex. This is a known and accepted medical condition.

Because of this condition she was singled out for workplace mistreatment. No, it is not as simple as acting the way she used to act, or wearing the clothes she used to wear. She was told she had to deny her true gender when around clients.

This is something that people who are not transgender do not understand how painful and damaging this is to us. It takes a hell of a lot of will and courage to finally stand up and be ourselves in a world that hates us and doesn't understand us. And it is things like this, and the attitudes exhibited in this thread that are the exact reasons why it is so hard to do.

Every human being should be afforded the same common decency. This includes transsexual people as well. Being asked to be treated as a normal person of their correct gender is not special favors. Saying otherwise is misunderstanding what transition is, bigotry or just plain old cisgender privileged. I am sorry for those that feel uncomfortable about transgender people, bu that is your problem. Stop making it ours instead. More and more often, the law is on our side. Not everywhere, not yet. But having everyone treated the same, regardless of race, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation the way it should be is happening. It's time to accept that, or get swept back into the past to be forgotten where bigotry belongs.

 

[C14N]

I'm no doubt horribly misinformed and ignorant but I though being transgendered meant you decided to have a sex change? However, this is clearly wrong because the court ruled it a "medical condition". So what is it exactly?

 

[Arafiro]

I think she/he put the company in a very difficult position and had I been the manager I would have been bricking it trying to work out how to get rid of her/him so as to avoid this very thing.

It's not hard, consult her about what she feels the company could do. Suggest, she work at home, take medical leave till she fully transitions, get her input and go from there. you don't just ignore everything and keep forcing her to act like a man and then go "well she was making our clients uncomfortable, it's her fault she got fired not ours."

The completely full story isn't really being told here, though. It's entirely possible that the company did exactly all those things you mentioned but she/he figured some money could be made.

 

[Arafiro]

I think she/he put the company in a very difficult position and had I been the manager I would have been bricking it trying to work out how to get rid of her/him so as to avoid this very thing.

It's not hard, consult her about what she feels the company could do. Suggest, she work at home, take medical leave till she fully transitions, get her input and go from there. you don't just ignore everything and keep forcing her to act like a man and then go "well she was making our clients uncomfortable, it's her fault she got fired not ours."

The completely full story isn't really being told here, though. It's entirely possible that the company did exactly all those things you mentioned but she/he figured some money could be made.

yeah sure, we should believe that they did things to try and accommodate her when they obviously didn't even care enough to get HER gender right.

Perhaps that was the desperate last measure of a (very misguided) manager who ran out of ways to exclude this person and so tried to include them in a way acceptable for business interactions with clients.

Frankly without further information I'm inclined to side with the business.

.. In fact, after typing that sentence I went and reread the entire article. They did offer this person work at home which they took, but then left after 4 months because the employer (understandably) had no wish for them to return to the workplace.
So yea, I definitely side with the employer unless there is some serious details being missed out in the article.

 

[nekoali]

I'm no doubt horribly misinformed and ignorant but I though being transgendered meant you decided to have a sex change? However, this is clearly wrong because the court ruled it a "medical condition". So what is it exactly?

It is both. To be transsexual (I prefer transgender, but that's more a blanket term for any gender variance) is to have a medical condition commonly referred to as Gender Identity Disorder. Which is to say that your (mental, spiritual) gender does not match your (physical) sex. GID is listed in medical journals and accepted as a condition. The recommended treatment of someone who is diagnosed with GID is therapy sessions, a regime of hormone treatments to help the body physically transition and possible gender reassignment surgery, commonly known as a 'sex change operation'.

People don't just wake up one day and go 'Oh! Well, I'm tired of being a man, I think I'll have a go at being a woman for a while.' and that's it. People are born as transsexual, the reasons why aren't exactly known. Brain scans and post mortem exams show that the brain structure of a transsexual person much more closely matches their gender than their physical sex.

A common theory as to why this happens is that the brain and body develop at different times in the mother's womb. If the wrong hormone signals are sent at certain times, the fetus could be told 'Okay, make the brain female' and then later on 'okay, make the body male'. Generally this leads to a lifetime of confusion, and self doubt, because our bodies and society says one thing, but our minds say another. The only legitimate and effective treatment found for this is to bring the body as close as possible in line with what the mind says.

 

[Jonabob87]

Protect her from what, looking so disturbing in a dress that everyone asks she wears pants? Nothing can protect you from that.

Why is it disturbing?

Not her problem. Yours. You sort it out.

For those wondering, you are not allowed to have serious sex-reassignment surgery until you live in role for at least a year, during which you are allowed minor hormone treatment. This means that you have to live full time in your new gender role, and can legally expect to be treated as a member of the sex you are transitioning to.

There is a legal responsibility on us as a society to treat the person in that position with respect, not get freaked out because your incredibly silly rules about who should wear what clothes are being broken.

The problem is not simply that he's wearing a dress, it's that he's looking like a man while doing it.

That's disturbing to anyone who has grown up in western society.

 

[Del-Toro]

I actually feel the company was being fair. I mean. Reasonably speaking, she worked in a position that involved meeting clients. You have to make a good impression. If she hadn't had the operation yet, then frankly, she was going to look like a cross dresser (she probably would have looked a tad like a cross dresser anyway, but not to the same degree). Cross dressing, wether it's real or not, is not appropriate for a workplace, especially not for meeting clients. The company had tried to compromise, but I guess it was not working. Furthermore, she quit, they didn't fire her, she shouldn't have gotten a fucking dime. Or English equivalent.

 

[Jonabob87]

I call foul on he/she. If your gonna go through a complicated life change dont expect others to be okay up front about it or expect them to know how to treat you.

How is it complicated? I'm not seeing it.

I've had people around me transition, both ways actually, and it's generally a very slick process provided everyone involved is aware and willing to cooperate. I'd be very surprised if the office didn't tell people months before that it was going to happen, unless they have an incredibly crappy diversity policy.

Just treat people how they identify themselves. That's not complicated, is it?

So when a mentally ill person claims to be the Queen of England we should treat them as such?

You're wrong, it is a very complicated issue.

 

[PatSilverFox]

Good for her.

 

[nekoali]

ummm I've been wondering for a while, and now seemed like an opportune time to ask. The men that transition but keep their male sex organs, and the men (in Thailand and such) that dress as women and take hormones but don't see themselves as women (as far as I understand) How does that work? What's their gender? Why do they do it? I can't find any information of the subject >.>

There are a couple of reasons why someone would choose not to have surgery. As far as what their gender is, you would have to ask them. There are so many gender variations that I can't speak for everyone. Gender is an internal thing. Only the person themself can really define what their gender is, and it's not as simple as male or female. Rather it's a sliding scale of sorts. My general rule of thumb though is, call them whatever gender they are presenting as. After all, unless you are planning on having sex with them, what their genitalia is doesn't have any bearing on your life.

Now.. why would someone not choose to have the operation... There are a variety of reasons. Some people may feel they are basically male and happy with that, but want an outwardly female gender expression. They want to be socially female, but gender and physical sex they are happy with male. These people are generally thought of as cross dresses.

Some people do identify as female, but do not wish to have sex reassignment surgery. Money is a common reason.. it is a horribly expensive procedure that is not often covered by insurance. Depending on which doctor you go to, the procedure can be from 20-30,000 USD, and often enough requires flying to and remaining in another country for two months for the surgery and recovery. For some people (such as myself) this is simply not possible. I struggle to make ends meet as it is, and the surgery would cost more than I make in a year... So unless I hit the lottery or something else major changes in my life, I probably won't be able to have my surgery, even though I want it.

Some people do not want to have surgery for religious or personal reasons, and still identify as female. I have a number of transgender friends who fall into this category. Many of them are trans men, since female to male bottom surgery is... not all that great yet.

As far as those who take hormones to feminize but still consider themselves male... That's usually for work, as I understand it. Sex work, that is. I don't personally know anyone who falls into that category, so my experience with that is limited to hearsay, really.

Again though, for myself, I refer and think of people as whatever gender identity they are presenting. If they didn't want to be seen that way, they likely wouldn't be expressing that way. So unless I am told otherwise, that's what I go with. If I am unsure what gender a person is, I simply ask what pronouns they prefer and go with that.

 

[DevilWolf47]

Always does my heart good to see discriminating motherfuckers forced to pay out the ass to their victims.