If you were part of your job's HR dept, how would you handle employee discomfort with a pre-op trangender employee using the restroom of the opposite sex?

I’m not even touching that one, lol.

Removed by me, because this hits too close to home and I’ve been awake for too long to be sure I don’t sound like an asshole.

There has to be some way to reassure people that just because someone is aligning their gender, it doesn’t mean that that person is coming bathroom to drool over them. It’s like anyone else going to the bathroom, durrr.

There’s too much wrapped into the idea of sexual activity with transgender issues. It’s part of the thing, of course, but it’s not the whole thing, and I’m sure it’s different for each individual going through it.

Is there any way you can have someone come in and hold a meeting to answer folks’ questions so as not to have your employee bombarded?

I would first talk to both sides individually. To the transgender employee, I’m sure it comes as no surprise. To the heterosexual group, I would remind them that this is 2009.

If the company had many bathrooms, I would ask both sides to use specific bathrooms. If there were only one male and one female bathroom, I would have the employees work it out themselves the way they would have to if they had to go to the bathroom with a known gay employee who had no plans for surgery.

All restrooms should be single-person, lockable, and usable by any person, regardless of that person’s internal plumbing or special-needs status, as is the case in the Providence (RI) Public Library. That’s what i think is a reasonable way to keep a contentious yet, logically, unnecessary question from ever arising.

Hmmm. How about if you go to unisex bathrooms? (Ah la “Ally McBeal”)

Very simply; he would continue to use the men’s restroom until the change is complete, and has been noted by HR. When the operation is complete, and his gender has been changed in the HR records, she may begin using the female restroom.

Most workplaces are not going to view unisex bathrooms as a reasonable option.

@LexWordsmith Are you saying they should build a private bathroom? Although that would be ideal, since I personally like private bathrooms, it’s not logical for large companies…my mother’s company is very large and they have large bathrooms with many stalls. It just makes more sense.

@jackfright What if they don’t want to complete the surgery fully? What if they can’t afford it? If they live as a woman, have acclimated to being a woman, then they are a woman.

Just saying “It’s 2009” doesn’t seem to work with people. I just don’t understand how people would want to force a woman to use the mens bathroom. And seriously? It’s not like you watch other woman go to the bathroom, and if it’s a female to male situation, what would the big deal be? Are they afraid the person will look at their junk? I’d think the people with an issue with it are fucking ridiculous.
I’d be a terribble HR rep. lol

WTF!

@casheroo , “doesn’t work with people”? If my employees refused to go to the bathroom, who are they spiting? The company is providing the bathrooms. The company is meeting the requirement. If they don’t want to use them, don’t use them.

@SirBailey All I was saying is that, as an HR rep, you can’t just say “It’s 2009, get over it” since that’s not very professional.

@jackfright, if I recall correctly, the trans-gender person must dress and act full-on the opposite sex as part of the qualification process… for months or even years in advance of the actual surgery sometimes.

So I don’t know that it’s gonna fly for you to say that the surgery itself is the tipping point.

Of course, that raises the question of what to do for your average kink-perv-douchebag who’d dress up in women’s clothes just so he can hang out in the women’s room and scope out the goings-on?

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I dunno. Don’t have a good answer. I guess I think you should go in the restroom of the gender you’re outwardly projecting and inwardly intending to be.

If the person in question has registered this intent with HR, then I don’t know what else to do other than suggest to people uncomfortable with it that they can elect to use a different bathroom or go at a different time.

I see this as a paradoxical question with no real right or wrong answer. As long as he keeps his eyes on the wall in front of the stall at all times (as is proper men’s room etiquette) I could care less.

JackFright—very simple, yes, but not necessarily a reasonable accommodation (legal term) if the person already thinks of self as being of the gender that s/he is planning to transform to. (Note that the Q does not imply that the change is M—>F.)

TCH: Workplaces might not view them as a reasonable accomodation, but a judge well could, under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

casheroo: not spending the money to provide this accomodation might make more sense to the management of the company, but not necessarily to the judge whose legal responsibility is to ensure that non-discriminatory conditions are provided.

Addition not in response to anything else: Maybe just a few single-person unisex-capable bathrooms, say one to each floor, would be a reasonable compromise that a well-intentioned transgender would tolerate or even welcome.

@LexWordsmith No US judge has made such a ruling. Most HR departments seek to avoid legal proceedings. I understand your reasoning though.

TCH —not yet, but it’s coming. “This is 2009, after all.”

In my opinion, if the transgender employee is pre-op but living and dressing as a woman, then she should be referred to and treated as a female individual. Perhaps sensitivity training for those that object?

This is a very interesting subject. There is a lot more that can be looked at. First, is this person a new employee? If co-workers have been working with, lets say a woman that has made the decision to have the surgery, for several years. She has been a woman all this time and now she decides to dress as a man, and use the men’s room. How do you think that would make her co-workers feel? We know this woman has her reason to want to be a man, but if folks become uncomfortable with this decision it could be trouble for her who now wishes to be him as an employee.

Ya know, the pre-op individual is under no obligation to say he or she is pre-op. So what if the employees did not know? What if they NEVER know? Maybe the person is POST op. Does that make a difference?

It would seem to be a form of descrimination, but just the same harrassment is typically not tolerated in the work place. This can be interpretted as such to individual that arent sensitive to this soon to be new fellas situation.

@SirBailey Employees are going to notice when an employee who had been working there for 3 years starts using the other bathroom.
Also the transgender person is entitled to dress as a woman would.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” doesn’t work in this scenario.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Is a man that is not transgendered entitled to dress like a woman?

Your question specifies “pre-op” employee. Would there be a difference if the employee was pre-op or post-op?

@sap82 I don’t know.
@SirBailey I would say there is a very basic biological difference between pre-op and post-op.

Let’s stay on target here regarding how HR would approach the subject.

i worked in an office that had a pre-op. They took everyone into a conference and “informed” them of the situation, s/his new name, etc. And that now we were to refer to s/him as a man. After that s/he used the men’s room.

trust me, it wasn’t a turn on.

@robmandu “Of course, that raises the question of what to do for your average kink-perv-douchebag who’d dress up in women’s clothes just so he can hang out in the women’s room and scope out the goings-on?”

that’s precisely why i’d consider surgery the tipping point. because until the surgery occurs, this person is technically just a man in a dress. tbh though it’s tough because as casheroo mentioned, there could be a slight grey area. in such cases though i’d talk to the other staff and see if anyone had a problem with it. if not, its all good.

Now that I think about this a little further. This is purely a question of sympathetics. I personally don’t think I can have any. Like many folks have said to me today on this site. The world is what it is. Just because you want to change it doesn’t make it happen. You alter your body, but…

That is all I have to say.

I doubt your average kink-perv-douchebag would want to pay the price in counseling bills, hormones, social ostracism, possible violence, mass misunderstanding and pariah status, just to get his jollies hanging out in the other gender’s restroom.

@jackfright, what’s to stop a kink-perv-douchebag homosexual male from doing the exact same thing in the men’s room? Nothing.

I don’t think that point is a suitable basis of argument.

If it’s M to F, I don’t see the big deal. After all, we use stalls. Honestly, anyone could be in there, we’d never know. So you make an announcement about the sex change because people are going to know anyway and this way the policy is laid out by the bosses.

If it’s F to M, I still don’t see the big deal. He’ll be using a stall. If it bothers the guys they can not pee while he’s in there or use stalls as well. The end.

It’s not a huge accommodation issue.

@EmpressPixie That depends on the person pissing next to the transgendered individual in question.

@laureth Do you speak from experience?

Let’s throw the corporate side in here. So you decided you live in the wrong body, and you want to get refurbished on the other side.

Why on earth would you have the right to use up company time and resources to be accommodated? Now you want someone in the HR department to deal with potentially alienated coworkers and fix it for you to cater to your special needs, unacceptable, sorry to say. Let’s not forget that this is an elective procedure.

@robmandu possibly not, but to my knowledge, restrooms are divided based on gender, not orientation. so what you mentioned is slightly different from mine. reread my previous post. i pay no heed to sexuality, just gender. a man in a dress is still a man regardless of his preference and that’s why he should go to the male bathroom.

@TaoSan Well said. I am afraid I would have to agree.

@TaoSan Are you saying that a sex change is an elective procedure?

@sap82 – Somewhat, yes.

@TaoSan – Absolutely. Let’s tear out all the handicapper ramps, too, I mean heck, they decided they needed a wheelchair, right? Why should corporate resources be used to make sure they can access anything, and have their needs catered to? Oh yeah, it’s the law…

@loser I don’t mean to answer for @TaoSan, but yeah it kind of only occurs with a person deciding to do it.

@laureth

Gender change is elective, after all, being born a man or woman is not a handicap. The line must be drawn somewhere. What’s next? Corporate sponsored nose jobs because I perceive my hawk hook as a “handicap”?

@TaoSan Only in California.

It’s not a handicap, only if you match what’s in your head. If it doesn’t match, it’s a handicap to the people living through it.

I’m not asking for corporate-sponsored nose jobs, or even corporate-sponsored sex changes. What I do think is appropriate is having some accomodations made for workers or customers who have had surgery, elective or no. Should coworkers be able to kick someone out of the bathroom after a nose job or a sex change? No, they should be accomodated. In many cases, the accomodation is pretty cheap, consisting of education.

@sap82 & TaoSan Yeah, it’s elective surgery just like a life saving heart bypass is an elective surgery.

@loser I am glad to hear you agree.

@laureth Does that really make it a handicap. What is the exact definition of a handicap?

@sap82 That was sarcasm.

@loser

You know, I have great respect for you and can’t even begin to understand what you went through. But I’m approaching this from a corporate angle. First of all, gender change = lifesaving heart surgery, nope, certainly not.

Second, they hired you based on potential productivity, if your personal issues of what nature ever they may be are becoming cost and resource intensive, it doesn’t make sense to employ you.

Handicap: To cause to be at a disadvantage; impede

To think you are a man trapped in a womans bodies does not really fit unless you want to call it a mental condition. But I dont think thats the mission of the transgendered. Correct me if I am wrong though.

Like any other part of the workplace, what’s outside of professional behavior is what it is and that means harassment or discrimination. The employees who use the restroom are in there to use the rest room, after all. As far as the pre op TG person, they should act as they always have, use the restroom to use the restroom. Where I work, it’s not unusual to walk into the Women’s room and see women comparing the skill of breast surgeries; that’s not something I really want to see but I’m also not going to report it. If the women were taking me aside and insisting I look at or participate in the critiquing of their surgeries then I might bring it up to them as feeling inappropriate for me and if they decided to retaliate by making it an activity they engage in specifically to annoy me then I’d take it to H.R. That’s pretty much the way these things go in all work places.

@loser

Would you have died because of physical malfunction if you hadn’t gotten one? If answer no, then yes, elective.

@hungryhungryhortence Just to clarify you are saying that to be pulled asside and told this is what you have to do in this situation would be taken as H. R?

@TaoSan Actually, I would have died because it came to suicide or a sex change.

I would be all for it, honestly, it is important. and that’s final.

@sap82: If the women were to go out of their way to bug me when they have already been told I don’t want to engage them then yes, I’d bring it up to H.R.

@loser

Again, from a corporate standpoint, that’s a mental issue. I’m not trying to belittle your life’s experiences and plights, but you have to see the other side too.

On a personal note, I’m glad that it worked out for you!!!

@TaoSan is right here. suicide is more elective than a heart attack is. one is a conscious decision, the other is not.

from a corporate perspective; all human life being equal, a transgender person is not worth more costs vs a non transgender person.

@jackfright Looking at it from that point of view, an employer may find it better to let one person go instead of expecting the rest to deal with that situation.

@sap82 That invites a lawsuit based on discrimination which is the one thing HR depts want to avoid if at all possible.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic

Not discriminating at all. A dick wanting to be in the vagina restroom, now here’s a potential lawsuit.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Bring on the lawsuit I say.

@TaoSan Letting a transgendered person go because she made people uncomfortable by virtue of being transgender is not justification for termination. If that person acted inappropriately in such a way that contributed to a hostile work environment, that would be grounds for termination.

These are the tricky grounds that HR departments have to navigate today, especially in today’s economy.

There aren’t a whole lot of businesses in a struggling economy that say “bring on the lawsuit”.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic

If that transgender person still has a weeny and enters the female restroom once that issue is settled. Fair? Prolly not. Hardship for the TG person? Certainly! Legally? Watertight! (here in Nevada at least).

And first and foremost, you’d let that person go on the grounds of not revealing a mental disorder at the time of hiring – failsafe.

@sap82 that is correct IF a larger number of the staff force has a problem with it. if they dont, it wouldn’t be a problem.

@jackfright That is my point. If the majority has an issue with it, something must be done. The same goes for any other situation. Not just the transgendered.

@TaoSan grr, it shouldn’t be considered a mental disorder

the question could use more clarification. what does “opposite sex” mean in this context? I assume you mean an MTF woman using a woman’s bathroom, right? or the opposite situation. (and, as aside, because of the expense and difficulty, relatively few FTM men ever get surgery, meaning that they tend to remain pre-op.)

if you say “opposite sex” in this context I think you don’t understand transsexualism. if he thinks of himself as a man (or woman), that makes men (or women) not the opposite sex.

in my experience, general population people (versus transsexuals) tend to get hung up on the pre-op or post-op question in that way.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir

Most definitely not, unfortunately that’s the legal “status quo”. On the other hand, if your “mind” is in utter and total disconnect with your body? How else to define it?

this question also has a geographical element to it. i understand that not all countries actually recognize sex change legally

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: the DSM-IV calls transsexuality (and TGism) a mental disorder.

see: http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/143089814-2/0/1243/110.html

as many of you may know (or should know) I don’t believe in the concept of mental disorders and I don’t believe in the DSM.

simply put, if a behavior bothers us, we give the name “mental disorders”. up until the early 1970s, they classified homosexuality as a mental disorder. through a highly emperical, very scientific process, i.e. getting together and talking about it. they determined this following after appeals from certain gay men in a position to communicate with the DSM board.

mental disorder has no scientific meaning. mental disorder means a societally disapproved way of behaving or thinking.

@Ria777 yes, I know about the DSM classification, just saying I don’t agree with it

yes, and I revised my response accordingly. one more thing, a Soviet or Cuban version of the DSM would have listed political dissidence as a disorder. a 2050 edition of DSM (though I hope they no longer print such a thing then) will not only have things we find mental disorders missing but will have things we consider normal listed. because sociocultural attitudes will have changed. so much the DSM.

Almost certainly not a mental disorder. Probably a prenatally generated developmental mismatch between the organization of the neurons in the lateral geniculate nucleus and the chemical influences on the development of the sex organs. These people feel trapped inside a body that’s of the wrong gender—that doesn’t make them delusional, psychotic, bipolar, whatever. But it can make them feel so frustrated and desperate that they’ll go through a very painful post-op period and incredibly distressing societal disapproval to escape the situation.

the biopsychiatry model says that mental disorders come from the brain* (except when they admit that they don’t**), so I say that by that definition, TGism qualifies.

really though, if you consider something wrong or unacceptable they label it a mental disorder. conversely, once the consensus no one calls that thing wrong or unacceptable, no longer a mental disorder. find a person who dislikes TGism and I can tell you, they’d classify it as a disorder.

* – I won’t try to deconstruct that statement
** – borderline personality and other non-exist “conditions”

If I was HR, there would hopefully be some HR type guidelines in place, along with the existing anti-harassment language in many employee “handbooks”. This would include not only trans-gender, but also trans-dressers. Any of the above mentioned “pervs” (I would choose a different term) who would cross-dress for a look-see, would be in violation of the same anti-harassment policies .

As far as his/hers restrooms, there seems to be a trend to install not only his or hers, but restrooms with “unisex” (I don’t particularly like that term either) facilities.

@Ria777 : My first sentence should have read, “Almost certainly not a non-organic, non-developmental mental disorder, and therefore not susceptible to ‘cure’ by talking therapies.”

i wouldnt have a problem with it