Transgender in the Workplace
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2018
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens if you are carrying out a high profile job, and then go public as transgender - for example switching from a "he" to a "she" or vice versa? Will your employer, colleagues and clients accept your new status? Manuela Saragosa speaks to Claire Birkenshaw, who did exactly that whilst working as a head teacher at a secondary school.
She also hears from Beck Bailey of the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for LGBTQ rights, about the surprising progress among big US and multinational corporations in supporting transgender employees. Plus endocrinologist Maralyn Druce explains why, even when it comes to your biological sex, life isn't as binary as we often assume.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: Former head teacher Claire Birkenshaw; Credit: Claire Birkenshaw)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuela Saragossa. |
| 0:08.6 | But what if I told you that from now on you should call me Manuel and refer to me as he and him? |
| 0:14.9 | Would you accept me as a man? |
| 0:18.5 | This edition is all about changing gender in the workplace. |
| 0:23.1 | One young person came up to me and said, |
| 0:24.9 | Good morning, Miss, and said it really confidently. |
| 0:28.0 | And I just said, you are the first person in history to call me Miss. |
| 0:36.3 | And when it comes to transgender issues, what are the guidelines for employers anyway? |
| 0:41.8 | How does the company support me changing my name across the company directory and expressing my gender according to the dress code that makes sense? |
| 0:51.6 | That's all coming up here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:58.5 | What's it like coming out as transgender at work? It's a question because while many no longer |
| 1:03.9 | regard gender as a strictly binary issue, there's still a lot of stigma attached to changing |
| 1:09.7 | your gender identity. |
| 1:11.6 | Only last month, President Trump signed a memorandum, |
| 1:14.7 | which bans some transgender people from serving in the US military. |
| 1:19.2 | And according to a survey conducted by National Public Radio, |
| 1:22.3 | NPR in America, more than half of transgender teachers |
| 1:26.7 | face harassment or discrimination in the workplace. |
| 1:30.7 | Well, Claire Birkenshaw transitioned from a man to a woman while she was head teacher at a secondary |
| 1:36.6 | school in the north of England. She told me how it was for her. On the surface, it would seem like I was |
| 1:42.7 | quite happy, quite gregarious. But inside there |
| 1:46.2 | was this inner turmoil about who I was ever since childhood. I'd always prided myself on my |
... |
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