Should people have to pretend their male colleague is female (or vice versa) just to keep their job? Until now, 'trans inclusion' has asked employers to put the comfort of trans-identifying staff first. But is it time for a more balanced approach, considering the impact on everyone around them, and the productivity of the organisation that employs them?
Is using someone's preferred pronouns really a small courtesy, or is it a greater imposition than it seems? And is affirming trans-identifying people actually helping them, or are their colleagues unwittingly digging them deeper into a belief that's doing them harm?
To explore these questions, Tanya de Grunwald is joined by Dionne Joseph, a London-based clinical psychologist with more than 30 years' experience who writes as 'Dr P' on X.
They ask:
- Did employers get so fixated on pronouns and toilets that they missed the bigger picture? Dionne argues they 'made a molehill out of a mountain', when the real question was whether some of these colleagues' needs could ever be met in a workplace.
- What happens to a team's productivity when everyone in the meeting is asked to pretend John is Jane? Drawing on the classic Stroop experiment, Dionne makes the case that asking people to override their instinct to recognise sex slows thinking, dampens performance and puts staff on edge, which is hardly a 'small courtesy.'
- Is 'I don't mind a man wearing a dress to work, as long as I don't have to pretend he's a woman' really a workable compromise? Tanya describes the unspoken power dynamic of small talk at the biscuit table. Dionne sees cross-dressing at work as a boundary violation and warns that every concession an employer makes will simply be followed by the next demand.
- Are employers doing trans-identifying staff any favours by affirming them? From office crowdfunders for top surgery to unsupervised staff network lunches, Dionne argues that every colleague who plays along risks digging the person deeper into what she sees as a mental health problem rather than an identity.
- Has the 'kind' employer quietly become a coercive controller of its female staff? Dionne says she is inundated with messages from women dreading Monday morning. She argues that mandatory lanyards, training and Pride screensavers impose a belief system on the very people expected to keep quiet about it.
- Why can't staff admit that a colleague's presentation gives them 'the ick'? Tanya tackles the argument that any such reaction is on a par with racism. Dionne, who is black, explains why she finds that comparison profoundly insulting.
- Should employers be asking whether staff on high doses of cross-sex hormones are fit for safety-critical roles? Dionne argues the effects of these hormones on mood and cognition have never been properly studied. She says she'd want anyone taking them in a high-risk job, such as pilots, air traffic controllers or surgeons, to have regular neuropsychological testing.
Tanya isn't asking Dionne to write anyone's HR policy. As she says, that's a job for employers and their lawyers, and a follow-up is already on the cards over at her new business network platform This Is Working (ThisIsWorking.net).
But she's convinced this is a conversation sensible employers are already having behind closed doors, about who they hire, what they're asking colleagues to go along with, and who is really paying the price for 'inclusion.'
This is not one for the faint-hearted, but it might just be the conversation everyone's having out loud a year from now.
Enjoy the episode...
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Dr P on X
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