Personnel Today
  • OHW+
  • Join
  • Resources
    • Clinical governance
    • Disability
    • Ergonomics
    • Health surveillance
    • OH employment law
    • OH service delivery
    • Research
    • Return to work and rehabilitation
    • Sickness absence management
    • Wellbeing and health promotion
  • Conditions
    • Mental health
    • Musculoskeletal disorders
    • Blood pressure
    • Cancer
    • Cardiac
    • Dementia
    • Diabetes
    • Respiratory
    • Stroke
  • CPD
  • Webinars
  • Jobs
  • Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • OHW+
  • Join
  • Resources
    • Clinical governance
    • Disability
    • Ergonomics
    • Health surveillance
    • OH employment law
    • OH service delivery
    • Research
    • Return to work and rehabilitation
    • Sickness absence management
    • Wellbeing and health promotion
  • Conditions
    • Mental health
    • Musculoskeletal disorders
    • Blood pressure
    • Cancer
    • Cardiac
    • Dementia
    • Diabetes
    • Respiratory
    • Stroke
  • CPD
  • Webinars
  • Jobs
  • Personnel Today

Mental health conditionsOH service deliveryWellbeing and health promotionOccupational Health

Comment: Why employers need to embrace trans inclusion and support

by Personnel Today 7 Jun 2019
by Personnel Today 7 Jun 2019 Erik McGregor/SIPA/PA Images
Erik McGregor/SIPA/PA Images

Trans or transgender employees can still often face prejudice, hostility and misunderstanding within the workplace. This makes it imperative employers lead the way in offering health and wellbeing as well as HR support, argues Dr Peter Mills.

Gender identity is the gender that a person feels themselves to be. While biological sex and gender identity are the same for most people, this isn’t the case for everyone.

About the author

Dr Peter Mills is medical director at Cigna Europe

Some people born with male anatomy may identify as a woman, while some born with female anatomy may identify as a male. Others may feel they’re not definitively male or female. While there are no obvious physical symptoms, this mismatch between sex and gender identity can lead to distressing and uncomfortable feelings, and it is these feelings that are more commonly known as “gender dysphoria”.

The consequences of continuing to live in a body that doesn’t match your gender identity may be severe. Some people with gender dysphoria have a strong and persistent desire to live according to their gender identity; these people are sometimes called trans or transgender people.

Some trans people can suffer intense psychological distress, which often takes the form of stress-related physical illness and depression, including thoughts of suicide. For some, the answer is surgery to make their physical appearance more consistent with their gender identity.

Prejudice and misunderstanding

Growing public awareness of gender dysphoria has led to an increase in the number of people being diagnosed with the condition. While it’s reassuring that more people are opening up about the significant stress they are going through, the sad reality is that many people still face prejudice and misunderstanding. For example, as Stonewall, the UK’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans charity has highlighted, one in eight trans people (12%) have been physically attacked by customers or colleagues in the last year because of being transgender.

It can be difficult for employers to know where to find information on supporting trans employees in the workplace.

Being an inclusive employer means acknowledging and embracing the needs of all employees. Diversity helps draw top talent and foster innovation, and people perform significantly better when they can be themselves at work. That’s why it’s important to have the right policies and support in place across the spectrum of workforce diversity.

Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness. Many of the psychological problems that trans people can face are linked to social factors such as stigma and discrimination. Every trans person should have easy access to counselling within the workplace to help support them through this difficult journey.

To that end, we believe there is a real opportunity for employers to adopt a supportive and inclusive approach to ensure that trans employees don’t suffer discriminatory treatment at work and feel included and supported.

Our top tips for employers would be:

  • Educate yourselves. Use the terms trans, transgender and gender identity, not transsexual and gender reassignment.
  • Update your HR policies. Consider your audience and tailor the content to different roles.
  • Devise an action plan. This should include physical spaces and facilities to cater for everyone.
  • Introduce your staff to trans inclusion. Communicate your commitment and emphasise the uniqueness of every person’s transition.
  • Create a transitioning work policy. This should provide structure, but be flexible enough to adapt to the individual

Diversity ‘champions’

Cigna recently signed up as a member of the Stonewall “Diversity Champions” programme.

This world-leading employers’ forum works with organisations to make sure their workplaces are truly inclusive. Being a Stonewall Diversity Champion means we have the tools we need to take a strategic and structured approach to inclusion within our own workplace and with the customers we serve.

As a provider of corporate healthcare plans, our approach is to offer care that’s clinically appropriate and in line with patient needs, while at the same time ensuring the wider medical plan benefit is sustainable for our clients over the longer term.

We believe every trans person should have easy access to counselling. That’s why we provide a separate £10,000 lifetime pre-operative counselling benefit for those members or dependants over the age of 18 who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Our nurses can also help to signpost members and their families to the relevant support, and these covered psychological benefits will significantly help individuals as they navigate their own trans journey.

And of course, as with all emerging clinical trends, we continue to review this position on an ongoing basis.

Personnel Today
Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Occupational Health & Wellbeing Awards 2019: closed for entries
next post
CPD: a pain in the wrist – supporting work-related upper limb disorder

1 comment

Avatar
Harold A Maio 7 Jun 2019 - 8:08 pm

Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness.

Please stop saying it is not, and confine your writing to understanding what it is.

Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You may also like

CPD: Conducting quality occupational health research (webinar)

9 Jun 2023

Meningitis patients left struggling from lack of aftercare

8 Jun 2023

Government missing cycling and walking targets, warns watchdog

8 Jun 2023

Long Covid fatigue can be worse than cancer...

8 Jun 2023

NHS pilot to test widening access to anti-obesity...

8 Jun 2023

How employers can support staff with adenomyosis

7 Jun 2023

All in it together: the role of employers...

6 Jun 2023

Thousands of nurses in Scotland ill with long...

5 Jun 2023

Kidney disease could become ‘public health emergency’ in...

5 Jun 2023

Robotics can transform health and safety as well...

2 Jun 2023

  • The HR Bundle: Your one-stop guide to building a successful global HR Department PROMOTED | Get your hands on Deel’s free HR bundle...Read more
  • The Benefits of an Employee Assistance Programme PROMOTED | EAPs support employees in a range of ways...Read more
  • Intergenerational working and how to manage up and down the generations PROMOTED | The benefits and challenges of intergenerational workplaces...Read more
  • Bereavement in the workplace: How training can help HR get it right PROMOTED | HR professionals play an essential role...Read more
  • UK workforce mental wellbeing needs PROMOTED | The mental wellbeing support employers are providing misses the mark...Read more

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2023

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2023 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • OHW+
  • Join
  • Resources
    • Clinical governance
    • Disability
    • Ergonomics
    • Health surveillance
    • OH employment law
    • OH service delivery
    • Research
    • Return to work and rehabilitation
    • Sickness absence management
    • Wellbeing and health promotion
  • Conditions
    • Mental health
    • Musculoskeletal disorders
    • Blood pressure
    • Cancer
    • Cardiac
    • Dementia
    • Diabetes
    • Respiratory
    • Stroke
  • CPD
  • Webinars
  • Jobs
  • Personnel Today