Transexual gets ?35,000 compensation for workplace discrimination

[chiefohara]

Transsexual hails equality ruling

A transsexual who was awarded more than ?35,000 compensation for workplace discrimination has spoken of her relief that the case ended successfully.

Louise Hannon (50) from Arbour Hill in Dublin, brought a case against First Direct Logistics in which she alleged she had been constructively dismissed when she revealed her gender identity to her employer and sought to live according to it in her workplace.

It was revealed yesterday that Ms Hannon has been awarded a total of ?35,422.71 from her former employer after the Equality Tribunal ruled she had been unfairly discriminated against on gender and disability grounds.

Speaking today Ms Hannon said she felt vindicated after winning the case and hoped it would serve as a warning to other employers about the need to look after their transgendered staff.

"I think that including diversity in the mix makes for a very good company and one which will be much more productive," she said.

"I had a very good relationship with the managing director. I got on very well with him and worked very hard for him and I think he would acknowledge that. I'm just sorry it worked out the way it did because it was a very unfortunate way that it happened," she added.

Discussing her compensation award on RTÉ radio this morning, Ms Hannon said she first informed her employer that she was transgender in November 2006 and asked to leave the company but was encouraged to stay.

However, Ms Hannon said things deteriorated after she changed her name by deed poll and sought to live fully as a woman in the workplace.

Ms Hannon - who was employed as a business development manager - was asked to continue using her male identity while carrying out many of her duties.

"The problem was I was being called Louise one minute and then my male name the next when I would be working on the phones in a big open plan office with the drivers standing at the reception with their jaws dropping. This was extremely upsetting and very embarrassing," she said during the interview on RTÉ.

Subsequently the company director told her she could come to the office dressed as a woman but should change into male clothing and use a male identity when seeing clients.

Ms Hannon said this request had caused her further anguish.

"It was very difficult. I couldn't figure out how I was going to do it and in fact, it put an awful lot of stress on me at the time," she told broadcaster Pat Kenny.

Ms Hannon was later asked to work from home for a short period because "there was an atmosphere" but after doing so for four months with no sign of being permitted to return to the workplace decided she had no alternative but to leave the company.

The equality officer said in her ruling that transsexualism was a recognised medical condition and said the company had little if any understanding that the gender-transition process was the appropriate treatment for the complainant?s condition.

Ms Hannon said she had no regrets in giving up her anonymity to pursue the case.

"If it encourages people to be more open about their gender identity then it's worthwhile," she said.

The awarding of compensation to Ms Hannon has been widely welcomed by support groups.

Transgender Equality Network Ireland said an important precedent had been set in recognising the inclusion of transgender people under the gender ground of equality legislation.

?Ms Hannon?s case highlights that transgender people regularly experience discrimination in the workplace as well as challenges in accessing and retaining employment,? said Teni chairwoman Martine Cuypers.

The Equality Authority also welcomed the decision.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0419/breaking27.html

 

[BonsaiK]

Boo hiss to news threads copy-pasted from somewhere else without any input from the actual poster. If you're not going to make any meaningful comment on this article, why should we?

 

[chiefohara]

I don't know the details beyond whats written there, but it seems a tad excessive to me. The workplace did its best to accomodate her wishes, without compromising its own business practices. The company is not responsible for other people's predjudice, and in fairness to it, did its best to continue to employ her as effectively and as senstively as it could.

 

[chiefohara]

Boo hiss to news threads copy-pasted from somewhere else without any input from the actual poster. If you're not going to make any meaningful comment on this article, why should we?

I was doing that as you were writing that nasty post, im not as au fait with the quote mechanics as everyone else, no need to lynch me for it

 

[Hiphophippo]

brb, getting a vagina surgically implanted. Gotta get that money!

 

[BonsaiK]

Boo hiss to news threads copy-pasted from somewhere else without any input from the actual poster. If you're not going to make any meaningful comment on this article, why should we?

I was doing that as you were writing that nasty post, im not as au fait with the quote mechanics as everyone else, no need to lynch me for it

The "here's a news article" threads are annoying when there's no reasonable discussion value attached to them. In this case, it's good that you made a follow-up post, but what are we actually supposed to discuss here?

 

[Baby Tea]

This is good news but at the same time it must be awkward for the company, especially if she was in a customer facing role and looked very masculine. It's kind of a double bind.

This is very true.
While I very much would oppose any sort of discrimination, I can understand where this company came from.
Because as much as the company is understanding, their clients might not be. I could have a phone-pool for answer technical support in my office, and have one guy with tourette syndrome who yells 'SHIT' as a tick. As much as I may understand and sympathize with that guy's problem, it causes harm to the company for him yelling 'SHIT' on the phones. It doesn't matter that I can try to explain this to people, I'll lose business.

Same with this woman. I can understand and be sympathetic to her situation, but if she looks like a man in a dress, that can cause serious problems with customer relations. That problem is with the customers, certainly, but that doesn't change the fact that they could lose business.

Honestly, depending on the company, this settlement could possibly be cheaper in the long run.
Seems like a lose-lose for everyone.

 

[chiefohara]

Boo hiss to news threads copy-pasted from somewhere else without any input from the actual poster. If you're not going to make any meaningful comment on this article, why should we?

I was doing that as you were writing that nasty post, im not as au fait with the quote mechanics as everyone else, no need to lynch me for it

The "here's a news article" threads are annoying when there's no reasonable discussion value attached to them. In this case, it's good that you made a follow-up post, but what are we actually supposed to discuss here?

You started tearing the thread apart in the space of a minute, less than a minute later i made my actual post.

Have the basic common courtesy to at LEAST wait a few minutes before you start derailing threads next time.

what are we actually supposed to discuss here?

I was wondering did people consider the ruling excessive or not, had you waited for my post you'd have seen the direction i wanted the thread to go in.

Also, I dont recall forcing you to say anything, you don't have to post if you don't want to, and considering your needlessly stand offish attitude im quite frankly not all that interested in your opinion either. thanks.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

I don't know the details beyond whats written there, but it seems a tad excessive to me. The workplace did its best to accomodate her wishes, without compromising its own business practices. The company is not responsible for other people's predjudice, and in fairness to it, did its best to continue to employ her as effectively and as senstively as it could.

Do you have any idea how touchy a business has to be nowadays with their PC rulings? Hirer too many white people? People can call you out for being racist. Higher too many non-white people? That is called reverse racism and it means you're trying so hard to not be racist by hiring a bunch of non-white people that you're being racist to white people.

If you have certain tasks that you find customers respond more positively to if a certain gender fills that roll, you're in danger in "gender inequality" if say a woman wants to work in the back room instead of being your administrative assistant despite being hired originally three years ago to be an assistant (I believe a company was sued over something similar).

Her name in the company records was her male name. If she got a legal name change (don't know if the poll change counts as one), then technically no longer works here and "Louise" is now hired in the company books. But if it's just a name she wants to use, then when she is representing the company, she should use her official name with the company, hence her male name, as that is the name associated with the position.

What probably happened with this company is a bunch of people working at the company said "You know, it is a bit odd working next to a man dressed as a woman. My clients are looking at her weird" or the clients felt it was odd to deal with her. The company is basically forced to try and take measures to rectify something, and while the paper trail takes forever to process (Yes, things like this can actually take months, sadly, and it is AND is not the company's fault) she decided it was enough.

While yes, transgenders should be treated fairly, companies have to tip toe through the tulips, daisies, daffodils, roses, and any other form of flora that you can imagine, or risk the wrath of discrimination

 

[chiefohara]

I don't know the details beyond whats written there, but it seems a tad excessive to me. The workplace did its best to accomodate her wishes, without compromising its own business practices. The company is not responsible for other people's predjudice, and in fairness to it, did its best to continue to employ her as effectively and as senstively as it could.

Actually, re-read the post and take note on how the company asked her to continue using her male name and dress as a male when seeing clients.

The business might not be responsible for others prejudices, but it has a duty to make a safe and equal work environment for its own employees, which obviously was not their intention.


OT: Im glad she got something out of it in the end, the emotional stress she must of gone through during the ordeal must of been unbearable. It just goes to show that you cant discriminate against anyone for any reason in the workplace.

It can depend on how effective she made herself look female however.

If she could easily pass for female then fair enough, id say the company was veering more towards the wrong, but if she (all PC labels being put aside here) blatantly looked like a man in a dress, that would affect business.

The company encouraged her to stay, and even when there was compromises needed for the sake of making good consumer relations they arranged for her to work and home and stay on the payroll... to be honest i thought the business was very accomodating considering she asked to leave in the first place.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

This is good news but at the same time it must be awkward for the company, especially if she was in a customer facing role and looked very masculine. It's kind of a double bind.

This is very true.
While I very much would oppose any sort of discrimination, I can understand where this company came from.
Because as much as the company is understanding, their clients might not be. I could have a phone-pool for answer technical support in my office, and have one guy with tourette syndrome who yells 'SHIT' as a tick. As much as I may understand and sympathize with that guy's problem, it causes harm to the company for him yelling 'SHIT' on the phones. It doesn't matter that I can try to explain this to people, I'll lose business.

Same with this woman. I can understand and be sympathetic to her situation, but if she looks like a man in a dress, that can cause serious problems with customer relations. That problem is with the customers, certainly, but that doesn't change the fact that they could lose business.

Honestly, depending on the company, this settlement could possibly be cheaper in the long run.
Seems like a lose-lose for everyone.

In most of my business courses, lose-lose is exactly what it is. Companies try to tailor themselves to the individuals that work fro them, but it's still not always enough. Take your tourette example:

Sure I can remove the man from the phone and explain that while it's not his fault, it's distressing to the clients. I'll take him off the phones, place him in an office of a cubicle, and give him off-the-phone (or "offline") work. Sure, the clients don't normally hear him, but his co-workers still hear repeated shouts of "Shit!", and you'd better hope there are no upper management meetings of important business deals going on in that corner of the building or they'll hear his tick and it'll still be disconcerting.

The company can still make concessions, and still try to find an amicable solution, but the moment they say nothing can be done and let him go with severance, he refuses the severance and sues them. It's a sad part of the business world

 

[MarkusWolfe]

I don't think they deserve a cent.

Wanna work at Hooters? Wear their uniform.
Wanna work at the Playboy Mansion? Wear the outfit.
Wanna work at McDonald's? Wear the gear.
Wanna work at First Direct Logistics? Dress how the owner wishes you to.

Don't like it? Don't work there.

I hate it when transsexuals use their condition like this.

This. Thousands of different jobs for thousands of different companies involve a uniform. The employer telling the employee what to wear is nothing new. Also, everything else was the company acting in their own interests while trying to be fair to their employee.

This is just like a guy getting heat for firing a Muslim construction worker because he refused to take off his turban and put on a helmet. I'm sorry pal, but if something heavy falls on you and splits your head open, not only would the company refuse to recompense you on the case that it's your own damn fault for not wearing the helmet, it's MY hide that's going to get beat for not making you wear it in the first place.

 

[Dismal purple]

I don't think they deserve a cent.

Wanna work at Hooters? Wear their uniform.
Wanna work at the Playboy Mansion? Wear the outfit.
Wanna work at McDonald's? Wear the gear.
Wanna work at First Direct Logistics? Dress how the owner wishes you to.

Don't like it? Don't work there.

I hate it when transsexuals use their condition like this.

First Direct Logistics only has a male uniform?

Mid transition you look kind of like a dork no matter how you dress. I don't think transsexual people like this any more than their employer or anyone else does.

 

[nekoali]

Wow. I'm shocked by the attitudes of everyone in this thread. The article was pretty good about getting her gender right, but everyone here seems to be judging her as a 'man in a dress'. Let me present these points:

She had transitioned from male to female, and was considered to be female.

Her employer was making her dress as a male to deal with clients. Does the company not have any other women working for them? Why single her out for this treatment? Because she is transsexual that is why.

Would a cisgender woman be asked to dress like, act like and be known by a male name while at work? I highly doubt it. And there would be as much if not more of a problem for the company if they did.

They say that they asked her to work from home because 'there was an atmosphere' while she was around. Rather hypocritical because the management was the ones who caused this atmosphere by not respecting her right to transition.

Pretty much everything this company did was wrong when it comes to handling transgender employees. They were very discriminator, and Ms Hannon bent over backwards to accommodate them. They didn't even want her working for them after she came out to them, as they asked her to leave. But they were probably afraid of the backlash if they fired her outright for being transsexual. It wouldn't be the first company who didn't want to fire someone, but made their work experience a living hell to 'encourage' them to leave on their own. That has personally happened to me, until they found another bogus reason to fire me without it seeming like discrimination.

I can't speak for how much money she was awarded in this, since I don't know the particulars of her job or any of that, but the way she was treated by her company was shameful, and they fully deserved to be taken to task over it.

 

[chiefohara]

I don't know the details beyond whats written there, but it seems a tad excessive to me. The workplace did its best to accomodate her wishes, without compromising its own business practices. The company is not responsible for other people's predjudice, and in fairness to it, did its best to continue to employ her as effectively and as senstively as it could.

Do you have any idea how touchy a business has to be nowadays with their PC rulings? Hirer too many white people? People can call you out for being racist. Higher too many non-white people? That is called reverse racism and it means you're trying so hard to not be racist by hiring a bunch of non-white people that you're being racist to white people.

If you have certain tasks that you find customers respond more positively to if a certain gender fills that roll, you're in danger in "gender inequality" if say a woman wants to work in the back room instead of being your administrative assistant despite being hired originally three years ago to be an assistant (I believe a company was sued over something similar).

Her name in the company records was her male name. If she got a legal name change (don't know if the poll change counts as one), then technically no longer works here and "Louise" is now hired in the company books. But if it's just a name she wants to use, then when she is representing the company, she should use her official name with the company, hence her male name, as that is the name associated with the position.

What probably happened with this company is a bunch of people working at the company said "You know, it is a bit odd working next to a man dressed as a woman. My clients are looking at her weird" or the clients felt it was odd to deal with her. The company is basically forced to try and take measures to rectify something, and while the paper trail takes forever to process (Yes, things like this can actually take months, sadly, and it is AND is not the company's fault) she decided it was enough.

While yes, transgenders should be treated fairly, companies have to tip toe through the tulips, daisies, daffodils, roses, and any other form of flora that you can imagine, or risk the wrath of discrimination

35,000 euro is a harsh lesson, especially if its beaurocracy thats holding things up. Not the companies fault society is the way it is, everyone makes compromise for their profession, and if the compromise this individual had to make was to work at home.... well its not asking that much i would have thought considering she was willing to compromise by resigning her job for her new lifestlye to begin with

 

[JabberwockyAi]

It's a sticky situation for all involved. The transition period for getting your body to be as close as possible to your sexual identity is a long and difficult one. It seems to me the company did the best they could but they also couldn't compromise their own business. It doesn't change the fact that this woman was essentially told to crossdress to please a customers sensibilities. I mean, let's put in reverse, shall we? You, a man, comes into work everyday. But you're kind of effeminate looking. Well, it would make the customers uncomfortable to talk to a man like that so your boss expects you to dress as a woman and act like one. It's very, very uncomfortable to think about isn't?

I think the solution to this problem isn't suing. I feel like this woman burned a lot of bridges and lost a lot of friends, not to mention painted trans people in a light of being hyper sensitive and using the fact that they are trans to just turn a pretty penny. This is probably not the case- she did deal with genuine discrimination and was forced to do something very humiliating because of it- but many people will not see the company's expectations as a big deal and instead see Ms Hannon in a bad light. Instead, I feel like she should publicize the discrimination in the real problem: Society as a whole that does not accept or tolerate much outside the hetero-norm. The solution is long term, educating people about the diversity of the gender spectrum so that future generations won't have to deal with the discrimination Ms Hannon did, and companies can do business more easily without having to compromise good ethics.