Advances in Developing Human Resources 2009 Davis 109 20

Advances in Developing Human Resources
http://adh.sagepub.com/ Transgender Issues in the Workplace: HRD's Newest Challenge/Opportunity

Debra Davis Advances in Developing Human Resources 2009 11: 109 originally published online 5 January 2009 DOI: 10.1177/1523422308329189 The online version of this article can be found at: http://adh.sagepub.com/content/11/1/109
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Transgender Issues in the Workplace: HRD's Newest Challenge/Opportunity

Debra Davis
Transgender issues in the workplace represent the bleeding edge of the cutting edge in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) diversity human rights movement. By becoming aware of the issues involved and conceptualizing interventions to help managers as well as employees, HRD can add value to the organization, fostering social equity as well as organizational effectiveness.This article will provide a backdrop for HRD scholars and practitioners to understand the myriad of considerations involved in this emergent workplace issue. Keywords: sexual orientation; transgender; gender identity
More than 300 of the Fortune 500 have a nondiscrimination policy that includes provisions for gender identity, in addition to the more common policy for lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees (Heller, 2006). Even though organizations may have included sexual orientation in their equal opportunity statements and policies, these policies do not adequately address the issues of gender identity or expression. These transgender employees often feel that the workplace is not a safe and welcoming place for them. The term transgender is used to refer to the full spectrum of persons with nontraditional gender identities including pre- and posttranssexuals, transvestites, and intersex persons (Bolin, 1998; Carrol & Gilroy, 2002). Transgender people have a self-image or identity, not traditionally associated with their biological maleness or femaleness. Many large companies are starting to grapple with transitioning employees and those employees who want to express a gender that may not be consistent with their legal identity. Basic protections for transgender people have been acknowledged in corporations only recently (Human Rights Campaign [HRC], 2006). By becoming aware of the issues involved and conceptualizing interventions to help managers as well as employees, HRD can add value to the organization, fostering social equity as well as organizational effectiveness.
Advances in Developing Human Resources Vol. 11, No. 1 February 2009 109-120 DOI: 10.1177/1523422308329189 Copyright 2009 SAGE Publications
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The purpose of this article is to present insights from a transgender woman to HRD scholars and practitioners, along with all organizational members, to help them understand the myriad of considerations involved in this emergent workplace issue. According to the Level Field Playing Institute, More than 2 million [transgender] professionals and managers leave workplaces each year due to unfairness, costing U.S. employers $64 billion annually (HRC, 2008, p. 17). Transgender employees face pervasive discrimination: HRC notes that at least one in five transgender people surveyed have experienced termination, harassment, or denial of a promotion.
A Primer on Transgender
Autobiography or the telling of personal stories is used to foster adult learning in many adult education venues as a traditional form of meaning making (Dominic, 2000). Clark and Rossiter (2006) introduced concept-focused autobiographical writing, the use of self narratives to teach something (p. 22). The goal of teaching others contrasts with traditional autobiographys goal of self-understanding. The facts of our existenceevents, actions, happenings large and smallconstitute the raw material of life. The facts are merely a data set without some process of understanding what they mean (p. 20). The goal of telling my story via this article is to teach others about transgender and the issues faced by real people. I am writing about gender: not necessarily the usual definition of woman or man, but the kind of gender that falls somewhere in between, or out on the edge, or beyond the periphery of conventional social norms. I am referring to differently gendered people, sometimes known by the relatively new term, transgender. I am writing as a holistic educator discussing my lived reality as an openly transgender person, not as a scientist approaching the topic from a rationaldeductive perspective. Too often, it is this lived reality and its associated personal experiences that are lost when one is writing to an audience of HR practitioners, educators, scientists, and students, as well as newly identified transgender individuals searching for information about our culture and community. During the last decades of the 20th century, a transgender community began to develop as sex (anatomic phenotype) and gender (psychological) became decoupled (Cole, Denny, Eyler, & Samons, 2000). Mathy (2000) has noted this decoupling is part of a larger social movement which in the 20th century witnessed the emergence of androgyny, bisexuality, and intersexuality as viable alternatives to the static dichotomies of masculine and feminine, heterosexual and homosexual, male and female, respectively. Transgender identity emerged as we began to realize that the social construction of gender did not uniformly or easily append itself to anatomic or phenotypic sex (Gross, 2005). Transgender is used as an umbrella term to describe all of us who feel differently about our gender than the general population (i.e., those who do not fit into the traditional meaning of man or
Davis / TRANSGENDER ISSUES
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TABLE 1:
Sex Gender
Glossary of Transgender Terminology

The classification of people as male or female. Refers specifically to the behavioral, cultural, psychological, or social traits typically associated with one sex, rather than biological characteristics. Refers to a persons innate, deeply felt psychological sense of gender, which may or may not correspond to the persons body or designated sex at birth. Refers to all of a persons external characteristics and behaviors such as dress, grooming mannerisms, speech patterns, and social interactions. Describes a persons enduring physical, romantic, emotional, and/or spiritual attraction to another person. Encompasses people who experience and/or express their gender differently from conventional or cultural expectations. This term includes transsexuals, cross-dressers, and other gender-variant people. Fear, hatred, or discomfort with people whose gender identity or gender expression do not conform to cultural gender norms. Refers to a person who has changed or is in the process of changing his or her physical sex to conform to his or her internal sense of gender identity. Refers to the process through which a person modifies his or her physical characteristics and/or gender expression to be consistent with his or her gender identity. Refers to people who wear the clothing and/or accessories considered by society to correspond to the opposite sex. Refers to a person who is born with sex chromosomes, external genitalia, or an internal reproductive system that is not considered standard for either male or female.
Gender identity
Gender expression
Sexual orientation Transgender
Transphobia
Transsexual
Gender transition
Cross-dresser Intersex
Source: From HRC Foundation Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: HRCF (Human Rights Campaign Foundation). Reprinted with permission of the author. Retrieved on 27th August, 2008 from http://www.hrc.org/documents/HRC_Foundation_ -_Transgender_Inclusion_in_the_Workplace_2nd_Edition_-_2008.pdf
woman). The term transgender can be defined somewhat more broadly as follows: All manifestations of crossing gender barriers. It includes those who cross-dress or are considered to otherwise transgress conventional gender norms, and all others who wish to describe themselves in this way. The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (2001), an internationally recognized organization of medical and psychiatric professionals, describes transgender as informally used term to refer to any person with any type of gender identity issue (page 4). Many different categories of people might be identified as transgender. The range is extremely varied and complex (see Table 1).
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I live in the United States, in Minnesota, a state with large urban areas but a predominantly rural population. Transgender people are included under the protections of the states Human Rights Act. In Minnesota Statutes 2000, Chapter 363 (Section 363A.03, Subdivision 44), transgender individuals are protected under sexual orientation provisions, which include those having or being perceived as having a self-image or identity not traditionally associated with ones biological maleness or femaleness. This has a pragmatic aspect. Because I am in fact a transgender person, I have (or you perceive me as having) a self-image or identity that may not go along with what you might think I have as sexual anatomy. However, this underscores the obscurity and danger about making assumptions about someones sexual anatomy. Generally, only a persons physician and intimate partner(s) really know their biological sex for certain. Moreover, sexual anatomy can be changed. Note the Minnesota legal definition includes perceived image or identity. Hence, the person does not necessarily have to identify as transgender or differently gendered to be protected under this law. The definition includes masculine women and feminine men who identify as male and female, respectively. Consider, for example, two Texas female bodybuilders who were attending a rock concert in Costa Mesa, California, when they were confronted by four police officers as they emerged from the ladies room (Oakes, 2001). The police accused them of appearing to be preoperative transsexuals and demanded they expose their genitalia. The women sued for harassment and emotional distress, resulting in a $50,000 settlement. The Minnesota statute was enacted in 1993 and it was not until 2000 that three more states (Rhode Island, New Mexico, California) finally included protections for transgender people. At the writing of this article, only twelve states have basic protections for transgender people included in their state statues.
A Personal Glimpse Into What It Means to be Transgender

Stoller concluded that sex was biological and gender was psychological or cultural. For most people, genetic sex and gender are closely aligned. For example, a genetic female with XX chromosomes and female sexual anatomy usually identifies her gender as that of a woman. The term transgender is an umbrella term that applies to a range of people who express their gender in nontraditional ways (Burdge, 2007, p. 244). The term transgender refers to people who claim the term on the basis of feelings that their assigned gender role is incongruent with their sense of self (Burdge, 2007, p. 244). Sexual makeup has at least four distinct parts: genetic sex (chromosomes, chemicals, and body parts), gender (what you think you are, a man or a woman, sometimes called the sex between your ears), sexual orientation (to whom you are physically and romantically attracted), and presentation and social role (how you present yourself to others, the social role you assume).
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It is estimated that 1% to 2% of the overall lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community is transgender (Burdge, 2007). According to the Intersex Society of North America (2004) the range of postoperative transsexuals (those who have had surgery to reassign their sex from either male to female, or female to male) is from 1 out of every 500 people, to 1 out of every 2,500 people (Burdge, 2007). For many, our first memory is dressing in the clothing of the other gender, usually between the age of 3 and 5 years old. It is not unusual for children to play dress up. This experience can leave an unforgettable memory. We also wonder whether we might be lesbian or gay. When I was living in the role of a man I remember reasoning that if I were gay I should be attracted to other men. However, I was not attracted to men, nor did I really consider myself a man. I seemed to be of a category that did not fit traditional descriptions. As a woman attracted to other women, I usually let other people put a label on it if needed. Another interesting aspect of the transgender community is the concept of purging, or throwing out everything that has to do with our feelings of being the other gender. For a male-to-female transgender person, this would include things like clothes, jewelry, and makeup. The feeling is that if you throw it all away, the feelings will also go away; the temptation to express that part of yourself will be gone, never to return. Most transgender people have done this, some many times, often at great expense. Of course, our identity does not go away. We can put our feelings on the back burner for a while. Inevitably the feelings and thoughts come back. The coming-out process of transgender people is similar to that of lesbian and gay people, except our community is much less visible and there are few, if any, role models. There may be one or two transgender organizations in larger cities, which might also have dozens of lesbian and gay organizations. In rural areas, groups for sexual minorities are rare, although the Internet has begun to provide access to information. Most people in our community never do come out publicly. Transsexual people are an exception to this because they are in a very small minority of transgender people who want to actually alter their bodies through surgery and hormones to match their internal gender identity. As part of the transition process, they have to publicly live and work full-time in the gender to which they are transitioning. This is one of the steps in the process of qualifying for surgery, if that is desired. Although all transsexual persons are transgender, by definition, the vast majority of those who identify as transgender or differently gendered do not wish to permanently become a member of the opposite sex. When transgender people do come out and decide to share secret selves with others, we run into the same questions as lesbian and gay people: Who do we tell, when do we tell them, and how do we tell them? When we do tell someone, we must be ready to face the fact that we may lose that person as a friend or loved one. If we do not lose that person, we may create a closet for them. When I came out to my parents, some years ago, and they went back to their home and friends in Mountain Home, Arkansas,
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whom could they tell? Who would understand? The fact that I came out of my own closet created a closet for them. I remember the times when my family would all go Christmas shopping together, and they did not want me to go along for fear they would be embarrassed. Transgender people tend to become very good at hiding. We cherish the times we can be at home alone. These are the times I could use to express myself and physically become the person hiding inside. I could let her out and not worry about getting caught.
My Experience as One of the United States First Openly Transgender Secondary Educators
Coming out is communicating ones LGBT identity to others (Beatty & Kirby, 2006). My coming out was in many ways like other LGBT people. As a youth, I questioned who I was, not knowing why I was different. I was living in denial of getting married and was having a family hoping who I really was would somehow go away. I was living as something or someone I was not and lying to myself and those around me. I just wanted to be normal, like everyone else (whatever normal was). In other ways, my coming out was not like everyone else. I was news. Apparently, I was one of the first transgender people working in secondary education to openly transition from man to woman. How did I get to this place in my life? I remember going to church with my family when I was about 4 or 5 years old. At that time, little boys wore white shirts and bow ties to church. Sitting in the church pew, I would watch the little girls come in with their families. They wore frilly dresses with petticoats and they had ribbons and bows in their hair. How I envied them; how I wanted to be them. Of course, I never told anyone because somehow I knew I was not supposed to be thinking these things. Somehow I knew that it was very wrong to have those thoughts. I wanted to be a good little boy and not make my parents mad at me. No one in my world had even considered the idea that a persons gender might not match his or her sexual anatomy. This was in fact, before Christine Jorgenson (a World War II soldier and one of the pioneers of the gender movement) had her highly publicized gender reassignment surgery, overseas. I got married relatively young, while still in college. I had done all the dating I cared to do, and it was time to settle down. I started to come out to myself in my mid-thirties. I had a wife and family, two children, a home in the suburbs, two cars in the garage, and a steady job. I started to look inside of myself and try to figure out why I felt different. Why did I feel that there was someone else inside me trying to get out? I experimented with cross-dressing for over half a decade before my thenwife found out. She found a book I had been reading, called Transvestites and Transsexuals (Docter, 1988). She put that together with our trip to the neighborhood Halloween party, where we had gone as identical twin sisters, wearing the same bright red blouse and black miniskirt, the same long blond wigs, and 3-inch red heels. It seems I had too much fun with the shopping, the
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makeup, and creating the whole presentation. Other men came to the party in drag, but within a few minutes the wigs were off, the lipstick was smeared, and the heels were gone. Not me! I looked great all night. In fact, I danced in heels all night and never took them off. The neighbors knew I had been in theater, so they probably didnt think twice. When my former wife rolled over one morning and told me she found the book, she did not have to tell me which one. I knew. We talked, we hugged, we cried and laughed, and decided to find out about this thing together. We went to national transgender conferences and joined the local transgender group. We facilitated the local transgender couples group and were very active in our local organization. Then, in the early 1990s, as it became apparent where this was taking me, she told me she did not want to be married to another woman. And she said, When we retire, I dont want to be on that Caribbean cruise with another old lady. I want to be there with a man. We divorced amicably. However, these types of significant losses are common among transgender individuals who make a decision to live a substantial portion of their lives in a gender deemed incongruent with sexual anatomy. After the divorce, I had less to hide. I started the process of coming out to some close friends. I started living as Debbie, but still kept the man around for work, the neighbors, and a few family occasions. I lived a dual life, both parts of me having very separate, private, and closeted lives with two sets of friends who did not know about the other side of me. The people who knew the man had no idea that Debbie existed. And the people who knew Debbie had no idea who the man was or what he did. Literally, I was living in two closets! Somewhere around Christmas of 1997, I came to realize that I needed to put an end to the duality of living these two very different, closeted lives. I needed to stop living in shame and guilt and integrate who I was into just one whole person. I have been an educator all of my life organizing a weekend training conference for senior scouting patrol leaders when I was 17 years old. As a senior in high school, I organized weekend retreats for youth. I started teaching right out of college in the Minneapolis public schools, where I have been employed ever since. The first person I ever came out to in my school system, a coworker, inflicted a great deal of pain on me through her constant harassment and intimidation, creating a hostile work environment which eventually caused me to take a leave of absence from school and seek psychiatric help. I slowly started to recover losing almost a half-year of work due to a deep clinical depression. I had been living in two closets, both secretive, both with the same fear of being discovered or outed. I returned to the school system in a new position, with new people who had no idea about my history as a transgender person. Less than a year later, I came out to the GLBT community as a high school librarian. On Monday, May 4, 1998, I came out to my school and the staff of 150 people, including teachers, administration, engineers, and kitchen staff, literally everyone who worked in the building, and a couple dozen guests and district administrators. The hard work and dedication of many people, the school districts efforts to deal with something that had never happened in the
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history of secondary education, my coworkers, my friends, and loved ones, all helped make my transition a success. Imagine being on the staff of my school and coming to a meeting, not knowing the subject or why you were required to be there. This meeting had to be very important because absolutely everyone was there, and that never happens. The principal then got up at the start of the meeting and told everyone present that a person that they had known as a man was really a woman and that from now on she would be working in the building as her true self, Debra Davis. By that evening, one of the local TV channels aired a 10-second story saying that a transgender staff person was coming out at Southwest High School. The next morning, the story ran on the front page of the Star Tribune, the leading metropolitan newspaper (Bentley, 1998a, 1998b). Television and radio stations were buzzing with the story. This is how I started my first day at school, working with students, as Debra. During the weeks that followed, staff would stop me in the hallway to talk about what had happened. What they said was how proud they were to be a part of our school community, and how proud they were to be there during this time. The parents with whom I talked would say how good they thought it was to have someone like me in the building. Their children would have an opportunity that no other children would have, the chance to work with and get to know a transgender person, and learn that in most ways, we are just like everyone else. For the students in the building, something phenomenal happened. It became politically correct to accept this. The talk in the hallways and lunchroom was that, if students used the wrong pronoun to refer to me, there must be something wrong with them. (Dont you understand, shes Ms. Davis now, a woman! Dont you get it?) Overall, the students reactions ranged from, Whatever! to How can I help? My principal was the rock of calmness through all of this. He told me that he refused to make decisions based on panic. He gave what I thought was the best quote of the entire process. He told the media, This was probably the biggest nonevent in the history of Southwest High School. I am so grateful for my life today. There are still days that I cannot believe that I, Debra Davis, as an out and proud transgender person, was able to go to work and do what I have done for more than 32 years, helping students learn, and do it as me. Why has my transition worked? One reason it worked was the State of Minnesotas Human Rights Act. In Minnesota, transgender people have legal protection. We cannot be discriminated against in the workplace. More important, I believe it worked because of all the people around me. They are allies, people who support us even though they may not be a part of our community. These are people who believe in the human rights of all people, and who demonstrate that belief with their presence and actions, their acceptance and celebration of diversity among people. If I had come out somewhere else, my experience might have been quite different. Even now, in any town, how would a transgender teacher be accepted in school? Would caregivers and parents and community members support that person, privately and publicly?
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What would neighbors and friends do or think? How would local churches react? Who would be supportive and who would struggle with the idea? There needs to be education because with knowledge there usually comes understanding, and in time, acceptance (Barber & Krane, 2007; Clark, Rand, & Vogt, 2003). Transgender people also need to be out and visible when they can. We need to be involved in civic issues and take part as members of our neighborhoods and workplaces. We need to be seen as participants and involved people. The fact that we may be transgender or differently gendered is only a small piece of who we are. Life should not be centered on the fact that we are transgender.
The Workplace: Information for HRD Practitioners

In most cases the transgender individual comes out to him or her self first, a process that can sometimes take a lifetime of struggle and dealing with selfdefinition and self-realization. Many times a life-changing incident such as a death of a loved one, divorce/loss of a special committed relationship, family dynamic change, or loss of a job, can trigger the need to express the feelings that have been contained within and not dealt with. When transgender people make the transition from one gender to another one of the last places to see and experience this change is usually the workplace (Cheng, 1999). Noted activist and trainer Donna Rose (2008) indicated that transgender issues have gained increased visibility in workplaces across the United States, and there is an increasing need for corporations to understand how to address transgender issues. There are a myriad of considerations for HRD practitioners with respect to transgender issues in the workplace (see Barber & Krane, 2007; Clark et al., 2003; Diversity Dilemma, 2007; Gilbert & Ivancevich, 2000; Lance, 2002; Najafi, 2007; Perry, 2006). Based on my own experience, organizations do not know how to react when an employee discloses that he or she is going to transition at work. Moreover, 82 of the Fortune 500 companies have modified their nondiscrimination policies to include provisions for gender identity and expression, in addition to the more common policy for LGBT employees (Heller, 2006). Therefore, in addition to the motivations of HRD to help create and sustain equitable workplaces for all employees, there are also legal factors involved in acquiring the competency to successfully assist transgender employees. Typically when an employee finds it is time to transition in the workplace, it is one of the final steps to living in his or her true gender. The decision to transition can put the job and career on the line. The decision is made under the guidance of a helping professional after years of discussion and treatment HRD professionals are often the first formal point of workplace contact that a transgender person makes to notify regarding his or her transition. HRD professionals are advised to understand the terminology of transgender issues, such as the glossary of terms identified earlier in this article. By understanding and using language with precision and consistency (e.g., referring to the
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transgender employee using the pronoun reflective of the identified gender), it signals to employees that HRD has knowledge, competence, and sensitivity. HRD can support and provide awareness and sensitivity training so that all employees are aware of and accept their colleagues. Because these issues are still new, emergent, and potentially disruptive due to the pervasive stigmatization of transgender people, the services and the expertise of an external consultant might be warranted. There are a variety of resources available such as the Transgender Issues in the Workplace toolkit, written by the HRC (2004). The Gender Education Center in Minnesota is a nationally recognized resource for coordinating successful workplace transitions (Gender Education Center, 2008). HRC maintains a list of trainers who have expertise on transgender issues. Formal workplace training of managers and employees helps to reduce the tension inherent in a transgender persons transition on the job. In addition, workplace training signals to employees that inclusion is important enough to the company that it allocates resources (e.g., funding, time, expectations of attendance). Workplace training can be customized for a particular workgroup, a particular set of managers, or a larger audience. It is best conducted with forethought and strategic planning on the part of HRD, in consultation with the selected consultant or trainer. Because of the increasing receptivity of corporate America to create equality for all employees, including transgender employees, HRD has both a challenge to educate itself or acquire education on the language, the struggles, and the process of transgender transitioning, to help facilitate successful workplace transitions.
References
Barber, H., & Krane, V. (2007). Creating a positive climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youths. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 78(7), 6-7, 52. Beatty, J., & Kirby, S. (2006). Beyond the legal environment: How stigma influences invisible identity groups in the workplace. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 18(1), 29-44. Bentley, R. (1998a, May 5). Students to learn of librarians gender journey. Star Tribune (pg. 1). Bentley, R. (1998b, May 6). Reaction tame to librarians gender transition. Star Tribune (pg. 9). Bolin, A. (1998). Transcending and transgendering: Male-to-female transsexuals, dichotomy, and diversity. In Dallas Denny (Ed.), Current concepts in transgender identity (pp. 63-96). New York: Garland Publishers. Burdge, B. (2007). Bending gender, ending gender: Theoretical foundations for social work practice with the transgender community. Social Work, 52(3), 243-250. Carroll, L., & Gilroy, P. (2006). Transgender issues in counselor preparation. Counselor Education and Supervision, 41, 233-242.
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Cheng, C. (1999). Old ideas about appearance and sex/gender identities in a new time: Order and the sexuality diversity case of transsexual school teacher Ms. Dana Rivers. Unpublished manuscript, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Clark, M. C., & Rossiter, M. (2006). Now the pieces are in place . . .: Learning through personal storytelling in the adult classroom. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 20(3), 19-33. Available from http:// education.fiu.edu/newhorizons Clark, J. E., Rand, E., & Vogt, L. (2003). Climate control: Teaching about gender and sexuality in 2003. Radical Teacher, 66, 2. Cole, S. S., Denny, D., Eyler, A. E., & Samons, S. L. (2000). Issues of transgender. In L. T. Szuchman & F. Muscarella (Eds.), Psychological perspectives on human sexuality (pp. 149-195). New York: John Wiley. Diversity dilemma. (2007). Training, 44(7), 10. Docter, R. F. (1988). Transvestites and transsexuals: Toward a theory of cross-gender behavior. New York: Plenum. Dominic, P. (2000). Learning from our lives: Using educational biographies with adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gender Education Center (2008). The transitioning process simplified. Retrieved on August 27, 2008 from http://www.debradavis.org/gecpage/gecworkplace.html Gilbert, J. A., & Ivancevich, J. M. (2000). Valuing diversity: A tale of two organizations. Academy of Management Executive, 14(1), 93-105. Gross, L. (2005). The past and the future of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender studies. Journal of Communication, 55(3), 508. Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association. (2001). Standards of care for gender identity disorders, sixth version. February 2001. Retrieved August 8, 2004, from http://www.hbigda.org/soc.cfm Heller, M. (2006). More employers broadening nondiscrimination policies to include transgender workers. Workforce Management, 85(12), 62-63. Human Rights Campaign. (2004). Transgender issues in the workplace: A tool for managers. Retrieved on January 26, 2008, from http://www.hrc.org Human Rights Campaign. (2006). Corporate equality index. Retrieved on July 26, 2007, from http://www.hrc.org Human Rights Campaign. (2008). Transgender inclusion in the workplace (2nd ed.). Retrieved on June 20, 2008 from http://www.hrc.org/documents/HRC_Foundation_Transgender_Inclusion_in_the_Workplace_2nd_Edition_-_2008.pdf Lance, L. M. (2002). Acceptance of diversity in human sexuality: Will the strategy reducing homophobia also reduce discomfort of cross-dressing? College Student Journal, 36, 598-602. Mathy, R. M. (2000). Psychology: An overview. In T. Murphy (Ed.), Readers guide to lesbian and gay studies. Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn. Najafi, Y. (2007, August 23). Gender confusion: With few answers in gender mix-up case in D.C. jails, activists look for solutions. Metroweekly, pp. 6-7. Oakes, R. (2001). Body builders run out of patience. Retrieved on 27th August, 2008 from http://www.kfwb.com Perry, E. (2006, May 19). Va.-based study identifies transgender health concerns. Washington Blade, p. 10. Rose, D. (2008). Workplace issues: News of interest. Retrieved on January 26, 2008, from http://www.donnarose.com
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Debra Davis, MS, is an award-winning educator, activist, and speaker. In 1998, she came out as a transgender woman when she was working as a librarian at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her transition is believed to be one of the first successful instances of a transgender person working with children in secondary education. She consults employers, law enforcement, human rights agencies, and not-for-profit service providers regarding policies that affect transgender people and is especially effective in coordinating workplace transitions for transgender employees. This refereed journal article is part of an entire issue on Sexual Minority Issues: Raising Awareness. For more information or to read other articles in the issue, see Rocco, T. S., Gedro, J., & Kormanik, M. B. (2009). Sexual Minority Issues: Raising Awareness. (Special issue). Advances in Developing Human Resources, 11 (1).

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Advances in Developing Human Resources

http://adh.sagepub.com/ Transgender Issues in the Workplace: HRD's Newest Challenge/Opportunity

Academy of Human Resource Development

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Transgender Issues in the Workplace: HRD's Newest Challenge/Opportunity

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