Transexual gets ?35,000 compensation for workplace discrimination

[MarkusWolfe]

If you're so effeminate that the average person would be more comfortable seeing you in woman's clothing, maybe you should be wearing woman's clothing for your own sake.

That wasn't the point. The point was that it's humiliating for a person to dress as the opposite sex if they do not identify as that gender (or are a transvestite). I'm sure you wouldn't want to be working in my pink summer dress and open-toe stilletoes but if I was your boss and told you that is how you had to dress to put the customers more at ease, you'd probably tell me to fuck off. Or maybe not you specifically. But many men would.

It's called a double standard.

Allow me to elaborate: If you were so effeminate that the average person would be more comfortable seeing you in woman's clothing, maybe you should be wearing woman's clothing to gain the benefits of people being not uncomfortable around you.

I'd be offended if you told me that. I'd also be offended if my boss told me that my face was so ugly that it was making clients uncomfortable. But then again, if my face was actually that ugly, I would already be trying to hide my face whenever I could.

 

[DRobert]

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.

And how is one "constructively dismissed"?

One is constructively dismissed when one isn't told "you are fired" but put in the position where one is compelled to quit.

On the original point, good for her. I realise that for some clients it might be difficult to deal with a transgender person, but for some people dealing with an ethnic minority is unconfortable. We, as a society, shouldn't go about compromising the principles of equality just to appease the irrational prejudices of a minority. THAT would be political correctness gone mad.

As for the argument that McDonalds make wearing the uniform a condition of their employment, that's fine. Employers can impose conditions on their employees. They just need to be consistent and not arbitrary. From the report, nobody else was being told how to dress for work, so it was inappropriate for the employers to dictate how she should dress just because she was transgender (outside the obvious 'underwear inside the pants' sort of rules).

Also, someone above raised the issue of muslims wearing turbans. I think that you are thinking of sikhs.

The report probably wouldn't mention if anyone else was being asked to work. Having taken a multitude of Human Resources courses and a couple of internships, I can say that while she could have gotten a good severance package and raised nice awareness, I think she went overboard.

Read my posts, a lot of companies have to be very careful about such things and it really is a lose-lose for the company. They alienate clients and upset their OTHER workers, or they piss off someone and get called discriminate. It's not easy to head an HR position with so many factors. As I say in my first post, try to be too diverse and you might get hit with reverse racism.

This company was offering her solutions, she as agreeing to them, and then simply decided to sue them. I don't see 35,000 euros being justified

Firstly, there is no such thing as reverse racism. It's just racism.

Secondly, I get that it can be difficult for employers but that doesn't justify discrimination. As I said above, we shouldn't go about kowtowing to bigots. You can't simply say "group A doesn't like transexuals, employee B is a transexual and wants to identify as such, so let's just let the employer do whatever" like both groups have equally principled stances. Those who don't like transgendered people are irrational. Transgendered people are just trying to get by. We should tell the biggots to go root themselves.

Thirdly, the report did not say that she stayed on on conditions (not that that would be any less discriminatory); it said that she stayed on and had unreasonable conditions thrust upon her. Now you are reading things into the report that aren't there.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Good for her. I know a lot of transsexuals who have been placed in similar situations, and it is always very distressing for them. It's not the same as being told to wear a uniform to work at a place, or to conform to a company guideline, it's much deeper than that.

People commenting on 'don't like, don't dress like a woman' are actually pretty much the direct example of why stuff like this still happens, because people don't understand transexuality properly yet. It's not exactly like transgenderism in that you want to be biologically a woman, and it's not just 'dressing like a woman/man' it's not a uniform or a costume or a disguise, it's as natural as a man putting on a pair of trousers and pants in the morning. It's who you are, not who you want to be. Or at least, that's the best description I've been given by transexuals as opposed to transgenders. One of them even asked me, 'weel can you explain why you always wear jeans and t-shirts,' and I couldn't come up with an answer that makes any logical sense, it just feels normal to me to wear jeans and t-shirt.

If she was conforming to the dress code for women at the office, then she should not have been asked to keep changing her dress and name to a masculine one.

 

[jackpipsam]

Glad she got her rights in the end

 

[MarkusWolfe]

Secondly, I get that it can be difficult for employers but that doesn't justify discrimination. As I said above, we shouldn't go about kowtowing to bigots. You can't simply say "group A doesn't like transexuals, employee B is a transexual and wants to identify as such, so let's just let the employer do whatever" like both groups have equally principled stances. Those who don't like transgendered people are irrational. Transgendered people are just trying to get by. We should tell the biggots to go root themselves.

That's real easy to say, but often the 'bigots' have a lot of money. From a selfish point of view, money makes the world go around. From a selfless point of view, it's better to hurt the feelings of, or even completely screw over, one employee instead of risking good business and with it the jobs of many other employees.

 

[chiefohara]

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

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.

I post based on what I see, it's not my fault that I read fast. I didn't see your follow-up post, because it didn't exist when I posted, therefore I posted based on what I saw, which was just a news article. I had no way of knowing you were going to post again. Most people post all the relevant content in the OP, they usually don't split things into two posts, because there's simply no need, therefore it's a reasonable assumption for a forum poster to make that the OP as it stands, is to be taken as is.

If you wondered whether people considered the ruling excessive, that's what you should have put in the post somewhere, but you didn't. In fact, you didn't ask that question in the follow-up post either. Nor did you put it in the thread title. I can see where you're going with it now, obviously, but you can't blame me for being a little confused about what's actually going on, at least at first. Finding a news article, highlighting it with your mouse, pressing Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V on The Escapist forums does not make interesting forum content. Presented (at the time) with only this, I made the comment that I felt was necessary. Apologies for making a comment that in the end turned out to be superfluous.

Confusion had nothing to do with it, you saw an opportunity to be condescending and dismissive and you took it.

You have a neo badge, so lets just end this conversation here shall we so you can keep it.

 

[DRobert]

Secondly, I get that it can be difficult for employers but that doesn't justify discrimination. As I said above, we shouldn't go about kowtowing to bigots. You can't simply say "group A doesn't like transexuals, employee B is a transexual and wants to identify as such, so let's just let the employer do whatever" like both groups have equally principled stances. Those who don't like transgendered people are irrational. Transgendered people are just trying to get by. We should tell the biggots to go root themselves.

That's real easy to say, but often the 'bigots' have a lot of money. From a selfish point of view, money makes the world go around. From a selfless point of view, it's better to hurt the feelings of, or even completely screw over, one employee instead of risking good business and with it the jobs of many other employees.

Which is why it is good that the employer can always fall back on "I get that you don't like transgendered people but it's the goddamn law".

But I do understand that it can be hard for employers, no doubt about it. But difficulty doesn't justify discrimination and doesn't justify breaking the law.

And, out of curiosity, how far would you go with this 'end justifies the means' business? No jews or blacks in this workplace? No women allowed, it might offend small minded clients?

 

[Zaik]

What a shame.

You can't really say they didn't try to accommodate him. Kind of getting tired of this nonsense.

 

[Still Life]

The company is not responsible for other people's predjudice

But the company is responsible for its own internal prejudices.

What a shame.

You can't really say they didn't try to accommodate him. Kind of getting tired of this nonsense.

You don't seem privy to the individual's sexual identity, do you?

 

[BonsaiK]

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

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.

I post based on what I see, it's not my fault that I read fast. I didn't see your follow-up post, because it didn't exist when I posted, therefore I posted based on what I saw, which was just a news article. I had no way of knowing you were going to post again. Most people post all the relevant content in the OP, they usually don't split things into two posts, because there's simply no need, therefore it's a reasonable assumption for a forum poster to make that the OP as it stands, is to be taken as is.

If you wondered whether people considered the ruling excessive, that's what you should have put in the post somewhere, but you didn't. In fact, you didn't ask that question in the follow-up post either. Nor did you put it in the thread title. I can see where you're going with it now, obviously, but you can't blame me for being a little confused about what's actually going on, at least at first. Finding a news article, highlighting it with your mouse, pressing Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V on The Escapist forums does not make interesting forum content. Presented (at the time) with only this, I made the comment that I felt was necessary. Apologies for making a comment that in the end turned out to be superfluous.

Confusion had nothing to do with it, you saw an opportunity to be condescending and dismissive and you took it.

You have a neo badge, so lets just end this conversation here shall we so you can keep it.

When I read the thread title, I thought "okay... I wonder where this is going, let's read it..."

When I read the article I thought "that's an interesting article... but what's the point of reposting this here? I still don't know what the OP is getting at... it's just a news article. Why do people just cut and paste news articles and assume that the readers will necessarily understand why they did? What am I actually supposed to discuss? I don't understand." So I made a post stating exactly this - that you can't expect people to make meaningful comments if all you're going to do is copy and paste a news article and nothing else. Anyway, that turned out to be an eventually redundant comment, because you eventually did add discussion value, so all's well that ends well.

I actually thought I was being pretty nice about this, especially in making multiple follow-up posts making an effort to explain my point of view and even apologising for the misunderstanding, neither of which I'm being forced to do, but which I'm doing purely out of the goodness of my heart to prevent friction and misunderstanding. I guess if you want to choose to believe something different, even after myself attempting to clarify things multiple times, I can't help that.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

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.

And how is one "constructively dismissed"?

One is constructively dismissed when one isn't told "you are fired" but put in the position where one is compelled to quit.

On the original point, good for her. I realise that for some clients it might be difficult to deal with a transgender person, but for some people dealing with an ethnic minority is unconfortable. We, as a society, shouldn't go about compromising the principles of equality just to appease the irrational prejudices of a minority. THAT would be political correctness gone mad.

As for the argument that McDonalds make wearing the uniform a condition of their employment, that's fine. Employers can impose conditions on their employees. They just need to be consistent and not arbitrary. From the report, nobody else was being told how to dress for work, so it was inappropriate for the employers to dictate how she should dress just because she was transgender (outside the obvious 'underwear inside the pants' sort of rules).

Also, someone above raised the issue of muslims wearing turbans. I think that you are thinking of sikhs.

The report probably wouldn't mention if anyone else was being asked to work. Having taken a multitude of Human Resources courses and a couple of internships, I can say that while she could have gotten a good severance package and raised nice awareness, I think she went overboard.

Read my posts, a lot of companies have to be very careful about such things and it really is a lose-lose for the company. They alienate clients and upset their OTHER workers, or they piss off someone and get called discriminate. It's not easy to head an HR position with so many factors. As I say in my first post, try to be too diverse and you might get hit with reverse racism.

This company was offering her solutions, she as agreeing to them, and then simply decided to sue them. I don't see 35,000 euros being justified

Firstly, there is no such thing as reverse racism. It's just racism.

Secondly, I get that it can be difficult for employers but that doesn't justify discrimination. As I said above, we shouldn't go about kowtowing to bigots. You can't simply say "group A doesn't like transexuals, employee B is a transexual and wants to identify as such, so let's just let the employer do whatever" like both groups have equally principled stances. Those who don't like transgendered people are irrational. Transgendered people are just trying to get by. We should tell the biggots to go root themselves.

Thirdly, the report did not say that she stayed on on conditions (not that that would be any less discriminatory); it said that she stayed on and had unreasonable conditions thrust upon her. Now you are reading things into the report that aren't there.

Reverse discrimination: Reverse discrimination, also known as positive[1] discrimination, is a controversial specific form of discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, or in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_discrimination

If someone makes an unreasonable request to stay home, you don't accept it for 4 months before deciding to sue, you say "No" and quit, or sue right away for discrimination. If someone says you must wear a suit to conferences, but you can wear a dress in the office, you don't accept it or a while and then say it was unreasonable.

When a demand is unreasonable, you don't accept it, you exercise your right to say "No".

Look at my t-shirt comment. It's the very same thing, and technically, i could do the very same thing she did, and I would probably win. People are just looking at the fact that she's transsexual and screaming "Discrimination". Yes, she should have awareness raised, but 35,000 euros is nuts, it's almost $50,000 because she was asked to go home and she said "Okay" for 4 months and then decided that it was an unreasonable request.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

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

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.

I post based on what I see, it's not my fault that I read fast. I didn't see your follow-up post, because it didn't exist when I posted, therefore I posted based on what I saw, which was just a news article. I had no way of knowing you were going to post again. Most people post all the relevant content in the OP, they usually don't split things into two posts, because there's simply no need, therefore it's a reasonable assumption for a forum poster to make that the OP as it stands, is to be taken as is.

If you wondered whether people considered the ruling excessive, that's what you should have put in the post somewhere, but you didn't. In fact, you didn't ask that question in the follow-up post either. Nor did you put it in the thread title. I can see where you're going with it now, obviously, but you can't blame me for being a little confused about what's actually going on, at least at first. Finding a news article, highlighting it with your mouse, pressing Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V on The Escapist forums does not make interesting forum content. Presented (at the time) with only this, I made the comment that I felt was necessary. Apologies for making a comment that in the end turned out to be superfluous.

Confusion had nothing to do with it, you saw an opportunity to be condescending and dismissive and you took it.

You have a neo badge, so lets just end this conversation here shall we so you can keep it.

The neo badge isn't taken away once rewarded. He has once posted 5,000 posts without incurring mod wrath. But this is widely off topic and arguing over someone being condescending isn't gonna help your thread. Don't bring post count into it, making comments on post count can be low.

Just as re-assurance, BonsaiK is actually one of the kinder people on the escapist. He can come off as rough and a little direct, but he means good man. DOn't sweat it

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

I have to admit it, it's my own fault for bothering to read them, but I'm pretty disgusted by what I've read from about half of the thread responses here.

About half of the posters have no, read ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA, of what it means to be transgender and the difficulties TG's put up with. It's not 'a man in a dress' or 'wearing a proper uniform' and it's not as simple as 'he should only wear "women's clothing" if he's passable'. About half of our mums look fairly mannish, kids, and we aren't about to insist she should wear a suit. Why pick on this one?

Working with TG's every day for years, I've seen alot of suffering and unhappiness. It's not a condition you'd want to be having, it's not a plea for attention, it's not fun. Not real transgenders, no. I'm not referring to lost people with identity issues, homosexuals in denial or gender confusion resulting from abuse or sexual dysfunction, (See most websites that have "shemale" or "dickgirl" anywhere in the title) no, I mean ACTUAL transgendered persons. It takes a barrel of courage to deal with things as they do, accepting that they aren't "freaks", accepting the world will not understand them, they will lose friends, loved ones, people who they thought were one or both, just getting started down that road is a hard one, generally years, decades, an entire lifetime in the making.

It sounds like the company may have tried to do right as a whole in the beginning, but specific persons own difficulties got in the way of that framework and in the end, their actions as representatives of the company were discriminatory. A huge corporation may follow very strict anti-discriminatory policy to it's letter, but one manager being an ass for whatever reason can spoil that effort completely, be it against a Euro-descent man, Black woman, handicapped left-handed Hispanic Muslim, or a transgender.

Proceed with disgruntled flaming and quotes.

 

[icaritos]

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.

No it wasn't. If you believe looks have nothing to do with how people interact with each other than you are incredibly naive, if i were to go to work dressed like a bum i would probably be fired.

This is not a matter of her gender, the fact here is that she most likely looked like a man, and while the company did it's best to accommodate her within the workforce, they simply could not compromise their relationship with their customers, which must always be the best possible. How can you request that a company maintain her in a position that actually makes the customer uncomfortable? The company had no power over their costumers biases or preconceptions.

Come on, there are so many injustices in the world, so many ways transgender, gays, lesbians and others are mistreated. Why attack the one case in which it seemed like the company was actually trying to handle the situation well. And when i say handle it i mean in a beneficial way for both parties, that is both the transgender women and the company itself.

 

[Still Life]

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.

You're so off track it's funny to read this post.

This has nothing to do with 'uniforms' and everything to do with the false imposition of gender identity. Our transsexual is legally allowed to identify with their respective gender orientation in the workplace, therefore they deserve every cent they get when discrimination comes into play.

 

[DRobert]

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.

And how is one "constructively dismissed"?

One is constructively dismissed when one isn't told "you are fired" but put in the position where one is compelled to quit.

On the original point, good for her. I realise that for some clients it might be difficult to deal with a transgender person, but for some people dealing with an ethnic minority is unconfortable. We, as a society, shouldn't go about compromising the principles of equality just to appease the irrational prejudices of a minority. THAT would be political correctness gone mad.

As for the argument that McDonalds make wearing the uniform a condition of their employment, that's fine. Employers can impose conditions on their employees. They just need to be consistent and not arbitrary. From the report, nobody else was being told how to dress for work, so it was inappropriate for the employers to dictate how she should dress just because she was transgender (outside the obvious 'underwear inside the pants' sort of rules).

Also, someone above raised the issue of muslims wearing turbans. I think that you are thinking of sikhs.

The report probably wouldn't mention if anyone else was being asked to work. Having taken a multitude of Human Resources courses and a couple of internships, I can say that while she could have gotten a good severance package and raised nice awareness, I think she went overboard.

Read my posts, a lot of companies have to be very careful about such things and it really is a lose-lose for the company. They alienate clients and upset their OTHER workers, or they piss off someone and get called discriminate. It's not easy to head an HR position with so many factors. As I say in my first post, try to be too diverse and you might get hit with reverse racism.

This company was offering her solutions, she as agreeing to them, and then simply decided to sue them. I don't see 35,000 euros being justified

Firstly, there is no such thing as reverse racism. It's just racism.

Secondly, I get that it can be difficult for employers but that doesn't justify discrimination. As I said above, we shouldn't go about kowtowing to bigots. You can't simply say "group A doesn't like transexuals, employee B is a transexual and wants to identify as such, so let's just let the employer do whatever" like both groups have equally principled stances. Those who don't like transgendered people are irrational. Transgendered people are just trying to get by. We should tell the biggots to go root themselves.

Thirdly, the report did not say that she stayed on on conditions (not that that would be any less discriminatory); it said that she stayed on and had unreasonable conditions thrust upon her. Now you are reading things into the report that aren't there.

Reverse discrimination: Reverse discrimination, also known as positive[1] discrimination, is a controversial specific form of discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, or in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_discrimination

If someone makes an unreasonable request to stay home, you don't accept it for 4 months before deciding to sue, you say "No" and quit, or sue right away for discrimination. If someone says you must wear a suit to conferences, but you can wear a dress in the office, you don't accept it or a while and then say it was unreasonable.

When a demand is unreasonable, you don't accept it, you exercise your right to say "No".

Look at my t-shirt comment. It's the very same thing, and technically, i could do the very same thing she did, and I would probably win. People are just looking at the fact that she's transsexual and screaming "Discrimination". Yes, she should have awareness raised, but 35,000 euros is nuts, it's almost $50,000 because she was asked to go home and she said "Okay" for 4 months and then decided that it was an unreasonable request.

Again, you are assuming facts. You can't have a go at me for reading something into the facts and then do the same yourself.

No, your t-shirt comment is a trivialisation of a serious issue. A request to wear what you want to work is a world apart from requesting to be treated as the gender with which you identify. Now I don't know what the laws of Ireland are like but in most places, you can't just sue for any old discrimination, it needs to be discrimination based on one of several designated issues, such as race, gender, nationality, sexuality, religion etc. I could be wrong on the law of Ireland, or Canada for that matter, but I doubt it sincerely. So if you wish to maintain your argument that you could sue because you were discriminated against on the basis of your love of short-sleeves, I will expect a link to legislation.

 

[MarkusWolfe]

Which is why it is good that the employer can always fall back on "I get that you don't like transgendered people but it's the goddamn law".

But I do understand that it can be hard for employers, no doubt about it. But difficulty doesn't justify discrimination and doesn't justify breaking the law.

And, out of curiosity, how far would you go with this 'end justifies the means' business? No jews or blacks in this workplace? No women allowed, it might offend small minded clients?

I don't see any laws being broken. I'm not talking about "Oh, you hired a transexual? We're not doing business with you anymore.", I'm talking about "I am disturbed by that transexual. I am subconsciously less likely to do good business with a company that makes me feel uncomfortable."

Thanks to the many strides of progress in human rights and society in general made in the last 100 years, must of us can compensate our own judgement for things like sexism, racism (provided neither party fulfills any stereotypes) and religious differences (provided that both parties are not extremists). Sexuality, we're still working on: I myself have no problem talking to lesbians, but maybe that's just because lesbians are nothing more than another category of women who will never sleep with me. Males gays.....the more flamboyant he is, the more of a problem I'm going to have talking to him, and I'm going to be freaked out if he flirts with me. Then again, that's for the same reason women would be freaked out when ugly men flirt with them.

It sounds like in the case in question, the lady invoked some sort of uncanny valley effect. No one can help that.

At the end of the day, you have to hire your employees based on how good they are at their job. Anything about them that doesn't interfere with them doing their job, or their co-workers doing their job, I literally can't give a fuck about. If their job is to interact with clients, then I'm going to make sure that they're someone the client would be comfortable with.

 

[Still Life]

If you believe looks have nothing to do with how people interact with each other than you are incredibly naive, if i were to go to work dressed like a bum i would probably be fired.

This transsexual does not dress like a 'bum', but takes pride in their identity and work. This point is null.

This is not a matter of her gender

The facts of the case state that this is specifically a matter of gender. This person identifies as female and being asked to play two split gender roles for the sake of the company is not only unethical and to the detriment of the transsexual individual, but also discriminatory.