Help-Sex Change Update

KathyHR

On Tuesday our part-time male employee gave us the Probate Court order showing the name change to a female. I went to the branch & spoke with him & found out that he had transitioned outside of work for the past 6 months, work was the last place he still dressed as a male. We decided that his next day of work (yesterday) would be transition day with him dressed as female. He very tastefully e-mailed staff Tuesday to let them know. Yesterday she was in a stylish skirt, shirt & vest & dangling earrings and everyone tried to remember the new name, there were of course some slip-ups with the first one by the supervisor.

Question for formites: On the DOL monthly statistics report do we categorize her as male or female?????? The surgery has not yet been done. So the hormones are female, the name is female but the equipment is male. HELP!

LarryC

Faced with that golden opportunity, I would not be able to resist putting down "other" and then wait for The Phone Call.

TN HR

Thank you, Kathy, for suddenly making the ills of my world go away. I needed this little piece of comic relief.

KathyHR

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I like that option, let them decide what it should be!

By the way, I had a wonderful visit to Minneapolis, thanks for the tips. My daughter is totally shopped out from MOA & Nicollett and actually wanted to leave a day early. Thank goodness I packed an extra 2' long duffle bag because she filled it (I helped a little) & needed space in my suitcase. She wants to go again next year but we're going to drive so we can see more of the sights.

hhaynal

Take a look at the referenced case, it may offer some direction.

The trial court judge opined that "a preoperative transsexual would appropriately be classified according to his anatomical sex. After a successful sex reassignment operation, however, 'psychological sex and anatomical sex become consistent as to outward appearances.'" M.T. v. J.T., 140 N.J. Super. 77; 355 A.2d 204 (1976).

LivindonSouth

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This reminds me of one of those crazy letters to Ann Landers like: "Ann, I'm marrying next month and have a dilemma as to what I should admit to my fiance. My brother is in prison, my father is a sexual deviant, alcoholic and my sister is marrying a pedophile priest. Ann, should I admit that I actually attended Ole Miss as a Sophomore?

What's up with this employee having carte blance to hijack the business computer system for personal purposes, discussing sexual preference and the like? You should have told 'it' long ago, to keep it all apart from work and don't interject a lot of turmoil into the workplace.

But here you are talking about 'stylish skirts' and 'dangling earrings'.

Every single minute you spend on this sexual reassignment balloon-ride is just another minute you are not doing the job you were hired by your employer to perform.

Crout

I disagree. "It" is a person, and depending on your locale may have codified employment rights, which very much would be the business of an HR professional.

deniseE

I also disagree....this is an employee and the appearance presented is a work-issue. Sometimes front end discussion and information saves a lot of headaches in the long run.

KathyHR

It may sound like Ann Landers but it happens and when it does we do have to deal with it, we can't pretend it isn't happening. True, she doesn't have any legal protection but she is a person and my personal opinion is most people have some value; more than what you insinuated. As an aside, she does have a good performance record. I may not agree with what she's doing, but I AM doing the job my employer hired me to do, to professionally deal with what is thrown my way.

BTW, she didn't have carte blanche to hijack the computer system and it doesn't have anything to do with sexual preference, just gender preference. We authorized her to send a short e-mail to employees to explain the change. We like to be proactive rather than reactive and wanted to let the other employees know ahead of time. Can you imagine the shock some employees would've had?

I did have a concern about possible flamboyance on her part (didn't tell her that) but she addressed that on her own saying what she would wear would be tasteful.
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Don- Hope everything is well with you and your family and you are safe & sound from Katrina.

Kathy

System

By nature there are only two physical options - man or woman. Psychologically, one could argue, there are more. 'A man trapped in a woman's body,' or vice versa. This is nothing new. The way we handle it is something new and rather liberal. The state of Maryland has a protection for 'sexual orientation.' But never, NEVER, have I heard, read, seen case law pertinent to a transitioning human other than the one cited above. I would concur that the complete transition is when the psychological and the physical are both complete. I would not favor the interest and the eagerness of the transitioning person. Since you cannot squelch office gossip completely, you may be fanning the fire by getting on this employee's bandwagon. Don't call more attention to this employee's need any more than you would to an employee going through the big 'D' or a grieving process.

Gillian3

I'm not sure that I see an employee on a bandwagon - just one going through a sex change and who has reached the "change of dress" stage. To let other employees know about the change is a good idea. A "tastefull" message from the employee is one way to go, another would have been for you to make the announcement, you could have had a meeting, or the employee could have shown up with no notice. The bottom line is - did this happen with minimal disruption. Kind of sounds like it did. I think that you make a change on reports when the change is complete.

HRLASS

In response to the various comments to your post, I believe that you handled the situation well. It is our job to keep the business running as smoothly as possible and things happen to employees physically and emotionally that can affect the workplace. Being both proactive and discrete can head off considerable problems. I sometimes wish management would learn this lesson with business issues in general. Saves time and energy, misunderstandings, rumors, etc.

SamanthaQ

Wow! All you asked for was help with the DOL report and you got all this! Makes for great discussion though! I'm just wondering with all of the transitions this employee is making what restroom is he/she using? Men's or Women's?

KathyHR

We only have 1 staff restroom so it is unisex but the public restrooms have more than one stall and staff use those if they really need to. In that case she would use the womens. Can you imagine someone dressed as a woman in the mens restroom? Or vice versa? We haven't made a big deal out of any of this and kept it low key. We just made sure the staff at that location was informed ahead of time and brainstormed some scenario's that could happen so we would be prepared in case it happened. Staff had 1 day to talk about it between the time she sent the e-mail & when she next worked. All in all its gone very well.
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Thanks to everyone for the help. For DOL reporting purposes we did classify her as a male. Anyone can change their name to pretty much whatever they want. But in Ohio one cannot change a birth certificate unless there was an error when it was issued, unless the law gets changed. Which also means she could not marry a male.

System

Then to answer the specific DOL question and using the information provided by hhaynal, I would record the employee as 'male.'

I'm not being insensitive. People face emotional and psychological adjustments with any major life change. The one you're dealing with is far less common than what others go through. I'm saying that in your attempt to protect the employee, you may be calling much too much attention to the change and by allowing other employees to comment and 'adjust' you may be adding a bit of disruption in the workplace.

Gillian3

I, for one, wasn't thinking that you were insensitive. I agree that this type of change can be very troublesome because it is so "different", but much less different than one might think. I remember when AIDS first became an issue and there was all sorts of speculation about what causes it, what happens if one works next to someone who has it, etc. etc. That also had the potential for a lot of disruption, but the conventional wisdom was that the more that you made it an open discussion, the easier those who were uneasy would learn and the less the disruption in the workplace. I don't think that this situation is greatly different.

Open1

I don't see that there was any choice but to honor the legal name change which would lead to everyone asking "why?" and then the rumors would fly. Seems to me the entire situation was handled rather well!