Here are just a few ways to reflect on and to assess how trans-inclusive your company's practices and policies are. Using these as a starting point, you can help your community protect and promote the rights of people of all gender identities and expressions. The work we need to do to affirm and support our trans team members as their most authentic selves is ongoing. We hope that these questions will not only provide fodder for conversation with your colleagues and help to spark broader social change.
1. What steps has your community taken to increase its understanding and acceptance of trans colleagues?
What forms of regular trans advocacy and awareness-building does your company engage in?
How does your company equip cisgender employees with concrete strategies to advocate for and defend their trans colleagues?
Do your community leaders model trans-inclusivity consistently in both words and behavior?
2. Does your company have trans-specific diversity trainings that illuminate topics pertaining to gender identity?
Do your company's DEI trainings cover the intersection of gender identity with other forms of marginalization and stigma?
How do your DEI trainings create safe spaces for trans and LGBTQ+ colleagues to participate, yet also avoid burdening them with the responsibility of educating others about their identities?
If your company hires DEI educators or speakers, do you regularly include those who identify along the trans identity spectrum?
3. What does your workplace do to ensure the correct pronoun and name usage for all employees?
Can employees easily update or change their names and pronouns in your digital information systems, company databases, and other workplace software? In your onsite directories?
Do these systems have ways of making correct pronouns visible for all employees?
4. How inclusive are your company's dress codes for all gender identities and expressions?
Do your company's dress codes include policies that require employees to present as the sex assigned to them at birth?
Does the language in these dress codes pressure employees to follow traditional norms for binary gender expression?
5. Does your company have gender-neutral spaces and events?
Can all employees access bathrooms that align with and affirm their gender identity?
In what ways might your workplace events and community-buildings activities pressure employees to act in “traditionally gendered” ways? What are some gender-neutral and inclusive future activities you can think of and propose at work?
6. Do your employees or community members have access to healthcare benefits that are gender-identity specific?
Do those benefits cover the costs of all kinds of gender-affirming care? Is your workplace prepared to provide employees with information about their benefits with regards to a range of gender-affirming care options?
Does your company provide organizational support groups or mental health resources to help employees with work/life issues that may arise during transition?
What barriers to gender-affirming care is your company working to remove for trans employees?
7. How does your community support gender transitions?
Has your company developed a flexible, informed, and comprehensive process for helping employees who are transitioning?
How does your company adapt these plans to each individual’s unique needs and give agency to the transitioning employee?
In what ways does your company's approach foster a supportive atmosphere for transition processes, yet also ensure that people are not outed before they are ready or without permission?
8. What policies and processes are in place for addressing intentional and unintentional harm or exclusion?
How does your company work to both prevent and handle instances of transphobia including microaggressions, mistreatment, or discrimination based on gender identity or expression?
How has your community been coached to address inevitable missteps and slip-ups?
Does your community consult and give autonomy to trans individuals before taking action when deciding how to handle a difficult situation?
9. How does your community check in with its members and keep itself accountable?
How often does your company create safe, accessible, and confidential avenues for team members to weigh in about their diverse needs, sense of belonging, and ideas for improvement?
How does your company follow up on both the feedback from its members and the insights gained from ongoing DEI education and diversity initiatives?
What changes have been made to reflect learning, collaboration, and growth?
To learn more, check out this deeper dive in the main source that inspired the questions in this blog post, Harvard Business Review's 2020 article "Creating a Trans-Inclusive Workplace: How to make transgender employees feel valued at work" by Christian N. Thoroughgood, Katina Sawyer, and Jennica R. Webster: https://hbr.org/2020/03/creating-a-trans-inclusive-workplace
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