UKC

Something for general discussion, story sharing, perspectives and me just letting off steam.

Background: My employers occasionally employ a guy, let's call him X, on a short contract basis who comes with a lot of 'baggage' in the form of a reputation for shonky work and unacceptable social skills. In the several years before I met him, I never heard a good word said about him. Recently he assisted me on a particularly complex job and while he was not the best, he was OK, willingly helpful and easy to get on with. I made it clear to the directors that I'd be happy to have him again.

Now X is in his 50s and in his own time he likes to dress as a woman, indeed he wore bright blue nail varnish while he was working with me.

Late last week X was scheduled to be working with one of my colleagues whom I'll refer to as B. B and X had only very briefly met about a year ago whereupon B refused to shake X's hand. They don't know each other at all, aside from reputation. I told B the other day that he was getting X as an assistant, and B objected. I told him that X was actually a good guy and would be useful on this job. B got very uncomfortable and said "We'll see about that." A bit later on I find he has 'got X bounced to a another job' and swapped with someone else. B's justification for this was 'I don't like him as a person.' B has made it clear to me that he considers X as subhuman because of his tranny ways. X does make an easy scapegoat for those who require scapegoats.

My anger/outrage/exasperation is twofold: one that B is a bigot, but also that senior management have accommodated this to save trouble. B is favoured and is possibly the most undignified bumlicker I've ever seen, which is saying something. There is little I could do, if push came to shove it would be my word against his but we all know the truth on the ground. The feeling of powerless is pretty sickening and I'm really not feeling the love for my employers right now to put it mildly.

Anyone got any thoughts or something similar to share?

I'll look in tomorrow, I'm off to bed now.

In reply to Removed User:

You want to share that you are not feeling "the" love for your employers?

Apres moi, le deluge, I should think.

In reply to Removed User:

Forgive me for ripping things out of context but honestly some stuff is leaping off you OP and it's nothing to do with transvestism:








Sounds like you have more issues with B than he has with X. The way you've written your OP anyway.

In reply to Blue Straggler:


But it would be reasonable to have issues with B if they are unprofessional and prejudice in their approach to X.
Is there a formal or informal disciplinary process that B can be referred to? If B is expressing dissatisfaction with X's work that is one thing, if he/she is openly prejudice because of X being transgender then this is not ok.
That said, getting angry and slagging off your colleagues on an internet forum is a hazardous way to do things - I hope nobody else in your office reads this because despite the lack of names, it sounds like X would be identifiable from your description and your profile identifies your location as Edinburgh.

In reply to Removed User:


Dear god, storm in a tea cup / first world problems....

In reply to Removed User:

What an unpleasant situation. My feeling is that X should not have to put up with B and any attempts to force B to work with X will only make Xs life more miserable. Whilst I agree it iisn't fair or right that is a practical solution. It would be so difficult to prove that B did anything wrong.

In reply to Removed User:

If this person was transgender then I'm pretty sure 'B' and thus by default your company would be guilty of unlawful discrimination as I think this is now a protected category.

Personality likes and dislikes should, in my view, not impinge on our working relationships.

In reply to Dave Perry:

I don't think the OP has suggested that X is transgender, I think another poster has confused transvestite with transgender.

In reply to stroppygob:

How much discrimination would you dismiss with that? Racism or sexism at work? A little bit of bullying? You're a lovely bloke aren't you.

In reply to The New NickB:

I did say, "if he was", raising the point that transgender which also involves wearing female clothing...............etc. thus there is a link.......

In reply to Removed User:

A few years back, my partner at the time was line manager of a guy who claimed to be in the process of gender reassignment. He started to dress as a woman at work and insisted he should be allowed to use to the ladies toilets. This particular individual was one who was unpleasant to work with and absolutely terrible at his job. My partner was unable to fire him because HR was so scared he'd claim discrimination. He asked for help from HR to performance manage him to help resolve his personal unpleasantness and his crapness at his job. As soon as the performance management plan was discussed, this guy started to claim he was being victimised and they ended up dropping the plan and my partner had to put up with him for the rest of his time in the company.

In reply to Blue Straggler:



Nothing to forgive. Yep, I certainly do have issues with bigots and people who need scapegoats, and those who let it happen for the sake of expedience. Describing B as an undignified bumlicker was not really helpful in the context of the subject, but if that's what you want to concentrate on fire away.

In reply to splat2million:



Yes, but as said it would be my word against his.


Edinburgh is a fairly big place, and it is known for its large population of alternative types. No climbing/outdoor links so I'm not worried. If I was registered on here under my own name I wouldn't have posted.

In reply to stroppygob:


Indeed Stroppy, no children will starve to death. Would you have said the same if the issue was X's race or sexuality?

In reply to Ava Adore:

Hi Ava thanks for the reply. Yes unfortunately there is the discrimination card which can be played to great effect whether or not it's fair. Same as the race card, much abused but it doesn't mean the discrimination doesn't exist, though in the case of your ex's work it all sounds a bit of a mare. Discriminating against someone for being an arsehole is very different from discriminating agaisnt them for being different.

In reply to Removed User:

Quite a lot going on in this situation & indeed it's an interesting post.

One thing which isn't clear - does B report to you?

In terms of what to do about it I guess there is what should happen and then there is what it is realistic to expect could happen. In an ideal world bigotry, cultural clashes and personal animosity shouldn't play a part in the workplace but in reality they do. I suppose there are 2 options - make B and X work together in the hope that B will get over his bigotry or avoid the conflict and have X work with more tolerant people (like yourself, for instance). Or you could play the (even) longer game and work with X and encourage others to work with X until eventually B is seen to be isolated by being the only one - or one of the few - who don't seem to want to work with X.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

Thoughtful reply, thanks.

B is junior to me but does not report to me except if we are on the same individual job. We have different line managers. Yes, everything you say about what is right and what actually happens is true in so many ways. Regarding X isolating himslef over this issue, this is already happening as no-one else has a problem with X in this regard. It isn't a game I really want to play, just one of those things that presses all my wrong buttons.

In reply to Ava Adore:


Sounds as though HR weren't doing their job correctly. There are at least two, possibly three, separate issues here. Unpleasantness could be either a disciplinary or capability issue, depending upon how it manifests itself, crapness at job is a capability issue. Both of these have nothing to do with claiming to be pre-op and dressing as a woman and a competent HR department should be capable of dealing with then in a non-discriminatory way.

Employers have a legal obligation to provide toilets and, where possible, gender specific toilets. Gender specific toilets are for the use of people who are legally of that gender. If someone awaiting transgender surgery doesn't want to use their legal gender's toilets, and you can see why they might not want to do that, they could use the non-gender specific disabled toilet, but they have no right to use the other gender's toilet and could not claim discrimination for being refused.

If there isn't a disabled toilet then there could be a case against the employer that it was unreasonable not to do so, but whether this case could be brought by a non-disabled person I'm unsure!

In reply to Removed User:

We have a service contract on one of our instruments, there are 3 engineers who may be assigned. I only ever heard good things about X and Y before meeting them (rightly so as it happens), Z the polar oposite; tardy, incompetent, not-conscientious and unkempt.

The first few times I met Z he was alright, his rep started to recover. But we had a nightmare with the instrument a couple weeks ago. The new parts coming from the European DC were DOA or failing once fitted. None of which I could blame on Z, he was even ordering duplicate replacements in the end. But the tech director (2 tiers above me) got involved and it was bollockings all round, on the phone to Z's boss etc etc.

His name is mud around here again.

Scapegoat whose face does not fit

In reply to andic:


The crux.

In reply to Removed User:

Ugly situation. Probably not much you can do.

jcm

In reply to hokkyokusei:

>Gender specific toilets are for the use of people who are legally of that gender. If someone awaiting transgender surgery doesn't want to use their legal gender's toilets, and you can see why they might not want to do that, they could use the non-gender specific disabled toilet, but they have no right to use the other gender's toilet and could not claim discrimination for being refused.

Are you sure about that? There are those who would say that people are of the gender they wish to be treated as. I don't know what the law says, but it would surprise me if it's as clear as you say.

jcm

In reply to hokkyokusei:

Not quite correct. People are entitled to use the toilet of the gender they are currently living as and presenting as. Nobody should be required to use the disabled toilet. The shape of someone's genitals should not be a factor - cubicles are there for a reason! If in doubt the trans person should choose whichever toilet makes them feel most safe.

There have been cases in which security guards have illegally prohibited trans women from using the female toilet. At least one of the trans women involved then went into the gents, where she was assaulted

In reply to Removed User:

>http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/right-to-receive-equal-treatment/tr...

Well, according to that the House of Lords have said that it depends on all the circumstances. Helpful guidance there, then.

jcm

In reply to Gone:

>If in doubt the trans person should choose whichever toilet makes them feel most safe.

But what if the women don't feel safe with a penised individual sharing their loo, even if she does intend to have it removed in the future?! Tricky. It ain't easy being an employer.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Trans people are far more at risk from assaults by others than they are risks to others.

A trans woman will probably be on hormone therapy which will give them less testosterone in their blood than a woman who is not trans.

A trans woman will probably hate her penis, be ashamed and disgusted by it, and the last thing she would ever do is get it out in front of others.

However, trans people are disproportionately at risk from violence compared to others.

It is not the duty of an employer to pander to other people's prejudices. If of course someone is behaving creepily in any toilet, rather than just peeing, that should be dealt with.

In reply to Gone:

>It is not the duty of an employer to pander to other people's prejudices.

Well, yes and no. I'm not sure it's 'prejudice' to dislike the idea of penised people listening to one pee. It just might make some people uncomfortable.

And, as to violence, the question is not whether pre-op penised women are more likely to assault you than men; it's whether they're more likely to assault you than other women.

But your points are well made, to be sure. I was just raising a bit of sympathy for the poor old employer.

jcm

I'd be cross too. But I think you need to bide your time on this one. Politics are ugly but you don't have enough ammunition to stick your neck out on this one. X's best ally is someone higher up who's still in employment. You do not have a strong enough case against B, he can easily say 'I simply don't get on with X', and without evidence that's where it will stop.

Wait until you have the right cards, you need some evidence and you need pressure building up on B so you can pile it on him, also a time when he and the management are a little less chummy would also help. Don't give any trouble over it directly, if you're still on a talking basis then you are far more aware of any slip ups. Good luck.

In reply to Removed User: Does your employer have a published Diversity or Equal Opportunities policy? If so, it might be worth having a look in there to see what steps X could take eg raising a grievance. It might even make the kind of discriminatory behaviour that B has exhibited a disciplinary issue.

At my previous job one of my colleagues "came out" as being about to embark on gender reassignment. (Is "coming out" the right term in this instance? It was a very difficult decision for her, anyway.) With her agreement the news was communicated in a structured and controlled way throughout the office, including reference to the company's Equal Opportunities policy. Our external suppliers were told as well. As a result, the first day she turned up in the office as a woman was pretty much a non-event.

It did take time and effort for HR and management to plan and implement the process. John's right that these kinds of thing are tricky for an employer to handle well.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I googled some more and you're right there seems to be conflicting advice out there, with equality organisations agreeing with you. However, I did find this case where a pre-operative male to female transsexual employee was prohibited from using a female toilet and took their employers to court:
http://www.thompsons.law.co.uk/ltext/l1250006.htm and lost.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:





I'm not saying that it is deliberate nastiness, but unfortunately humans are pre programmed to distrust groups different from one's own (eg small children can be very racist without realising it) and only through education and knowledge of other groups can inequalities be diminished.


What I said wasn't that that trans women had lower testosterone than men, I said that they had lower testosterone than other women! (Hence less of a sex drive etc)

I know a trans woman who got assaulted in the loos by a non-trans woman. The other woman, I think, was curious about what was still there, what was real and what was fake etc, and decided to find this out with a non consensual grope.

d employer

My mother in law ran a struggling pub which didn't serve travellers. My mother in law wasn't racist. It was the only pub in a small village in a deprived ex mining community, and a lot of the locals were racist, and so whenever travellers came in, her insurance premiums went up because the locals got in fights with them and broke the windows, and she couldn't ban every last one of the the locals. So she put up a 'no travellers' sign. Which was, I believe, illegal as well as wrong. Sucky situation all round.

In reply to hokkyokusei:

The thompsons law case dates from 2003. The Gender Recognition Act didn't come in until 2004, and trans rights have evolved considerably in society since, so practises that were common but legal, if not best practice, back then would probably be judged illegal today.

In particular pre/post operative status is losing importance as one can gain full gender recognition without surgery in certain cases, and for female to male transsexuals there isn't one single surgery anyway.

However I am aware of a recent case in which a trans woman was denied a job in a bridal boutique because she would have to deal with female customers who were partially clothed and the customers might feel embarrassed being helped to dress by a trans woman. Probably legal, but less likely to be legal if the trans woman is post op and has spent most of their life female, more likely to be legal if the trans woman is still transitioning.

In reply to Removed User:

Is the answer B M X ?

In reply to Blue Straggler:




Isn't that the point?

In reply to Removed User:

Get on with your job, keep yer hole shut and stop filling this garbage forum full of unimportant drivel.

In reply to Gone:

>What I said wasn't that that trans women had lower testosterone than men, I said that they had lower testosterone than other women! (Hence less of a sex drive etc)

So you did. Sorry; didn't read properly.

Don't think we're really disagreeing.

jcm

In reply to hokkyokusei:

Yes, that's the HL case I was referencing which said it's all a matter of the circumstances. The claimant failed for specific reasons, reading between the lines, to do with provision of unisex loos, or something.

As syv k says, though, one wouldn't be surprised to hear that things had moved on in this area since 2003.

jcm

In reply to Removed User:
FFS the comprehension skills on this forum are a bit lacking.
1. The person enjoys dressing as a woman "in their own time". This is entirely different to someone who believes they are a woman, it's no different to you or I wanting to dress in a gimp suit at the weekend. This is not some oppressed minority no matter how you dress it up!
2. Worker X is not an employee but provides services as a short term contractor.
3. There is no evidence of bullying, someone was moved to another job to split two people up. It might be harsh on the person moved if they were blameless (and given their past record the OP alludes to that may not be the case) but if you try to initiate a grievance procedure every time that happens the economy would grind to a halt. It's practical management.

In reply to Gone:


Thanks for pointing this out. I've worked with trans people during their transition, so was speaking from my previous experience, but the law has clearly moved on since then. Thanks for correcting me.

In reply to Martin W:


Similar process where I used to work.

In reply to Removed User:


No, but there again, seeing as it wasn't, your point is a bit silly.

In reply to Removed User:

I guess you might try to find out why the senior management think that they moved him into another job... They may have been given a spurious rationale?

In reply to awwritetroops:



Unfortunately, after gay being the new black comes trans being the new gay and of the nine causes in the Equality Act 2010, transgender is 'The Last Great Problem'. It is therefore not unimportant that we understand this matter and start to work on our ingrained fears and prejudices associated with it.

In reply to Jim Fraser:


The mind boggles.

In reply to midomidi2013:


And where, at any point, has anyone remotely suggested that X is transgender?

Why can't anyone read the bloody posts these days!