Transgender Employees

Key Terminology

Anyone seeking to address the needs of transgender people must first understand the accepted terminology. Although definitions and preferred terms can vary even among transgender rights groups, 'transgender' is generally used as an umbrella term to refer to people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. In turn, gender identity refers to one's innate, personal sense of being male or female, whereas gender expression pertains to one's external manifestation of gender identity, typically expressed through such attributes as attire, hairstyle, behavior, and voice. For transgender people, the birth-assigned sex is different from their own internal sense of gender identity. The process of transition, then, is one in which a transgender person modifies his or her physical characteristics and/or manner of expression to fit the stereotypical norms associated with his or her gender identity. Dealing with transgender employees can present a unique challenge to employers since, unlike other protected categories in which an employee's status tends to be static, a transgender person may still be in the process of transitioning from his or her birth-assigned sex to his or her reassigned gender. Note, too, that transgender does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation, as, for example, a transgender person could be heterosexual or homosexual.