That’s Not My Name
Does your company have systems and procedures in place to support a transgender staff’s chosen name being displayed in all external spaces? If not, you’re going to want to listen to this episode.
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Show Notes:
Welcome to part seven of the Be Proud series, 10 essentials for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the workplace. Last week, I covered different ways that you can look out for your. Including creating an employee resource group or an ERG for your Queer identified staff today, I'll be focusing on having systems and protocols in place to support the chosen name and pronouns for your transgender staff.
Little bit of background and context here. So in addition to my LGBTQ+ inclusion consulting work, I'm also a licensed therapist. I specialize in working with the Queer community. So I have a lot of trans non-binary and gender nonconforming clients. So part of that work is helping people to navigate the coming out process, including coming out at their jobs and then doing so I hear what people are afraid of when they have to do that.
There's a lot of unknown with coming out as transgender at your job. A lot of people are wondering, like, is my company going to support me? Could I get fired for this? Even though technically right now, we do have federal protections in the us that protect gender identity and being trans. So it's not something that's a fireable offense, but people still wonder.
Could the company find a different reason to fire me, you know, could they say I'm not performing well enough? For example, I often hear too, like, I've never known of somebody else at the company doing this. So I don't know if they even know what to do in response. I don't necessarily wanna have to be the pioneer.
I don't wanna have to walk them through this. So this process needs to be common knowledge at your organization. That way, people know that like, we've got this handled, we know how to do this, so it's okay to come to us with this. You can do that by having it be in the employee handbook talked about part of the normal conversation.
You can feature this periodically in your company newsletter. This information needs to be available and known to everyone because you don't know who is trans within your company, so you don't wanna make any assumptions there. So if you put it out to everyone, the people who are trans that you're not aware of are getting that information and you're helping them to feel safe, to be their authentic selves in a space that is historically not welcoming to Queer and trans people.
The workplace. People straight up, leave their jobs over this. They will start fresh. I've seen this happen so many times with the clients that I work with. They're like, you know, rather than have to go through the whole process of coming out and asserting myself here and kind of coaching people through my new name and pronouns, I would rather just leave this job and I'll just start over somewhere new as myself.
So like, here's the thing totally fair. If somebody wants to do that, I'll support that for sure. And I can understand why, but sometimes they love their job and starting over at a new job is also not easy. So if the company on the front end makes it known, Hey. Not only do we know how to do this? We will support you through this.
We have policy and procedure to support you through this. People are more likely to then do it. It's still hard and it's still not something that they necessarily want to do. But if the company makes efforts to help support this, that's gonna go a long way. So how can a company help support this? It's really important to have an internal system that ensures that a transgender staff's chosen name, not their legal name is the one that shows up in all external spaces.
Now I'm not a lawyer, disclaimer, so I'm not speaking from that place. But what I hear a lot from an HR perspective. Well, you know, we have to use a person's legal name. That's not even up to us. That's just something that we have to do. That's how we have to have them in our system. Yes. For certain things, for example, like on someone's paycheck, the way that they are listed within your company's internal HR system.
Yes. Those things do often require it to be a person's legal name. However. That name should not show up elsewhere. It needs to be on a need to know basis. It needs to be kept confidential within those internal spaces. And if that's not, what happens if that legal name, which is not the name that the person goes by, and it's a name that causes harm to them, that is not okay for that to show up anywhere else.
And it does. That's another thing I hear all the time from the people that I work with who are openly trans at their job. And even when the company is supportive and even when their coworkers honor their name and pronouns, if their name hasn't legally been changed, yet that former name often referred to as a dead name within the trans community.
Still pops up here and there, and that's not okay.
Hey everyone. Eric here with a question for you. What's your company's inclusion score if you're like, um, I don't know. How do I measure that? Don't worry. I've got you. I've created a free checklist of the 10 essentials. Your organization needs to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. It only takes a few minutes to discover your score and you'll get practical ways to make it higher.
Hashtag winning to level up your diversity, equity, and inclusion. Head over to Be Proud With Eric dot com slash inclusion checklist. Let me give an example here. For perspective, let's say there is someone who works at their company, a woman named Stephanie. Everyone knows this woman at the company as Stephanie, and then however long into working there, all of a sudden their name pops up as Steven.
Why because that's how the company has them listed in their internal server. And that name pops up in a lot of places where people aren't expecting it to, and the person themself isn't even expecting it. Stephanie's not expecting it. And all of a sudden she joins a team meeting on the internal server where she's given a piece of mail or something like that, that somebody else sees.
And her name is listed as Steven. From an HR perspective, you have just violated this person's confidentiality. You are also outing them as transgender in the process. And remember gender identity is a protected category against workplace discrimination. So you are the one that could get in trouble for that happening.
AKA, you could be sued. No one wants. No one wants to be sued. Here's the other tricky thing. You're also not able to speak why that name showed up. So let's say somebody saw the name listed as Steven and was like, oh, that's weird. Why does it say Steven and not Stephanie? You're not allowed to say, oh, well, because she's transgender and that's actually, that's still technically her legal name.
So that's the name that we have listed in some spaces. So that's why that's there. Nope. You are not allowed to say that because that is a breach of confidentiality and a breach of privacy. And that is a violation to that person. I mean, that's a personal violation. It's also legally not allowed. Let's say with this scenario, somebody learns.
That somebody is transgender. They're like, hang on. What, Steven, that she's not Stephanie. She's actually, Steven, I'm not okay with that. I don't wanna work with her anymore. Whatever fallout comes from that, that is on the company because that company did not protect that person. So in addition to having a system in place that protects a person's chosen name and has that show up in all external spaces.
Another way to support being gender inclusive within a company is to have the assertion of gender pronouns, be a normal part of the company culture encouraged by leadership regularly used. It's just something that happens there. It's embraced there. And everyone sort of like learns that system. Why in the workplace, you need to know how to respectfully address everyone on the team.
Now in episode four of my podcast, I talk all about pronouns, what they are, why they matter how to use them. And in the second half of that episode, I talk about specifically how they apply in workplace settings. I encourage everyone to give that a listen. I'm not gonna be going. Into all of that information, because you can listen to that episode to get all of that, but the TLDR or the TL DL too long didn't listen is not having to include pronouns.
When you introduce yourself is a privilege that most cisgender people have cisgender meaning somebody who's biological sex or more affirmatively referred to sex assigned at birth lines up with their gender identity. For people who are transgender, non-binary gender non-conforming. This is not always something that is available to them.
So by normalizing pronouns, across the board at a company, you are supporting gender inclusivity now, because I work in DEI, I have lots of friends and colleagues who are DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion directors for corporations. So I get to hear the things that are said behind closed doors, in regards to inclusion work.
And one of the things that companies say is, do we really have to do this whole pronoun thing? So like, pronouns are on most people's radar. Most people have experienced them in a professional setting, whether or not they're comfortable with it or understand it or on board with it, including executives and business owners.
So a lot of them kind of realize this is becoming more and more of a thing. And they're like, do we really have to do this? So, you know, here's the thing, essentially. No, you don't, but if you don't, it looks bad and it's gonna continue to look worse and worse as time goes on and it gets more normalized. So you could wait for that to happen and kind of drag your feet or be ahead of the curve, ride the wave, you know, have some vision.
See that being inclusive is what is elevating businesses right now and be on the forefront of that. So again, more information on pronouns and everything about them. On episode four of the podcast, some takeaways from this information, not thinking about supporting a transgender person's chosen name and pronouns causes harm to your staff.
And it puts the company at a disadvantage. If you put systems and procedures in place to support being gender inclusive, you are taking the guesswork out. You're saving people's stress. You're helping people to be their authentic selves at work. And you're increasing the retention of your staff and ultimately bottom line here, saving your company money.
So if this is something that has never crossed your mind before, if you work in HR, if you are a business owner, if you work in management, I want you to think about what would happen if somebody on our team shared with us that they are transgender and are going by a different name, you don't have the option.
Not to honor that legally you have to. Do you have systems in place to support that happening? Or are you gonna have to figure it out on the fly? What it happens? Cuz it's not an, if, if it hasn't already happened at your company, it's going to happen more and more people are being their authentic selves in the workplace.
People want to be themselves, they don't wanna have to hide and more and more people are transitioning now. Because there is so much more elevated visibility and representation for the trans community and don't get me wrong. It's still not a great climate right now to be trans in this country. But a lot of people are still doing it and going for it and living their lives.
And that includes at their job. So if you don't have any systems in place, it's time to start thinking about. On the next episode of my workplace inclusion series, I will be covering what to do when one of your staff members comes out as LGBTQ+ at work until next time stay proud.
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