Rogan Porter at a park in Sackville, N.B., on Dec. 5.Chris Donovan
Rogan Porter was 19 and working at Tim Hortons when he came out as transgender. He worried his colleagues and customers wouldn’t accept him during that period a decade ago, and says his fears were proven valid.
“All the customers were talking,” says Mr. Porter, 28, who lives in Sackville, N.B. “I got called an ‘it’ by a customer to my face. We’d have a guy come through that was like, ‘How do you like working with a he-she?’”
In a fast-food environment where “the customer is always right,” Mr. Porter says his supervisors did little to protect and support him. While he was allowed to have “Rogan” on his name tag, it was never changed on the restaurant’s point-of-sale system, and most of his colleagues continued using his old name.
“You’re always so tired when you have to fight for that level of acceptance,” he says. “It was really toxic.”
Life has improved significantly for Mr. Porter, who was recently hired as a customer service representative at Willful, an estate-planning platform. The job allows him to work from home, which gives him more privacy, and he says his colleagues treat him with respect and take his input on how to better serve gender-diverse customers.
“I worked for fast food for 10 years because I really believed it was all I was capable of,” he says. “I was made to believe I was lucky to get the level of acceptance that I had.”
Of the many challenges associated with coming out as trans, many people rank dealing with their workplace as one of the biggest, and it’s often the last place they reveal their true identity.
Workplace hurdles for those wishing to transition include fears of judgment or negative career impact, lack of time off for surgery, and repeatedly seeing their “deadname” on payroll or IT accounts that aren’t set up to accommodate a name change.
And that’s just for those trans folks who are fortunate enough to be employed. According to Trans-Pulse Canada, a national survey-based research project, trans people are more likely to be underemployed, unemployed and living in poverty than the population as a whole, despite having higher levels of education.
Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, says that applying for a job can be hard for people worried about being judged on their appearance.
She adds people who transitioned after leaving the education system may have a different name than appears on their credentials, which leaves them open to having to explain their gender identity to potential employers.
“It’s a hostile climate for trans folks in the workplace,” says Ms. Kennedy, whose Toronto-based organization runs training sessions for business and government organizations on how to better accommodate trans workers. “Most [human resources] departments aren’t educated around gender identity and transitioning on the job.”
Egale has partnered with Carleton University researcher Dan Irving on a recently-launched study of trans people’s experiences in the workplace called Working for Change. Dr. Irving has been studying this topic for the past 10 years and has come across a whole suite of workplace challenges trans people face regularly.
He says issues such as uniforms, dress codes and bathrooms have come up frequently, noting several past research subjects have reported feeling stigmatized after being forced to hang a sign on the door when they’re in the bathroom, to “warn” others to stay out. Trans people often report being laid off or overlooked for promotions for reasons that aren’t fully clear, he says.
People wishing to transition surgically often face challenges getting the time off they need to do so, adds Dr. Irving, who is trans.
He adds that in our post-industrial economy, workers are increasingly expected to convey a feeling or aesthetic beyond just providing goods and services, which can exclude people whose look or aspect falls outside traditional gender norms.
Dr. Irving says that while having workplace policies that support trans folks should be considered the baseline, there is more work than that to be done. He says he’s heard the same simple suggestion from his research subjects over and over: hire and promote trans people. “Not just at an entry level; all levels of one’s business,” he says.
Toronto-based diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy Feminuity has created a guide for businesses looking to “reimagine their workplace in rainbow,” including better accommodating gender diversity. The company suggests adopting applicant-tracking and human resource systems that allow for diverse gender options; normalizing sharing pronouns in introductions, e-mail signatures and usernames; and committing to correcting team members when they misgender someone or make comments that denigrate trans folks.
Several of Canada’s big banks, including CIBC, have changed their employee benefits policies in recent years to better support transitioning employees. BNP Paribas, which has about 1,500 workers in Canada, mostly in Montreal, recently made a similar change. Chief compliance officer Michel Allen, who is the sponsor of the company’s Pride employee resource group, says that when BNP Paribas reviewed its insurance program this year, it added a new benefit giving up to $10,000 plus psychological support for employees undertaking gender affirmation surgeries and procedures. The policy took effect in July.
Mr. Allen says the addition wasn’t based on an employee request and hasn’t been used yet, but the company wanted to be proactive.
“It was more about being in line with our culture, with what we believe in, and making the bank more welcoming for our diverse staff – and making sure we have the response when the questions come,” he says.