What do we know about Transgender issues?

It has been 6 years now since I made the decision to live my most authentic self...

I wrote this and reread it and thought to myself "So what does that mean exactly? Why should anyone care?!". Well, I will tell you. It means that I have been living now as a woman, who is part of a disadvantaged cohort, long enough socially to see there is so much work to do in the HR and D&I space as an advocate. A bit about me: I am a parent of two young daughters who still call me Dad/Dadda/Daddy but it is she and her. Right "So how does that work", as I am always asked, is:

"Where is Dad?"

"She is in the toilet."

I think you get it from there. Also, I came from an IT background of about 20 years fixing and selling computers since I was about 15 years old. I could tell you about our Commodore 64, or our family computer which was a Compaq Intel 486, 66mhz, 20 MB ram, 10x Cd Rom Drive, 500mb Hard drive... yeah stereotypical nerd who grew up in the Midwest of the USA and moved to Australia to marry my second, now ex, wife 17 years ago.

Now I want to acknowledge that Transgender people span all communities, are of all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, and abilities. Also be aware when I refer to Trans or Transgender community in this article I am referring to Transgender, Gender Diverse, and Non-Binary or TGDNB which is the appropriate terminology. But let's use the umbrella term.

The reason I started to write this today was that a grim situation is facing the transgender community as a whole and is becoming worse and no one is even aware of it but us. When most of us are watching the news or see a tv show or movie we often think of this stereotype: early to middle-aged men who dress in women's clothing, often for a fetish. This first of all has to stop. We need to make sure we are raising some awareness of the struggles this cohort, my cohort, is facing. With the increased visibility of the transgender community, more industries and individuals are finding the need to increase their knowledge and understanding of issues that affect the Transgender community. But we can't learn about something if we can't see it, interact with it, or touch it. So let me share with you what you are being exposed to on television and don't even know about it, it's true I am very serious:

CSI (CBS), which not only featured a transgender serial killer who murdered his own mother but scenes in which transgender murder victims were openly mocked by the show's lead characters while examining their bodies and crime scenes.

The Cleveland Show (Fox), in which a man vomits onscreen for a lengthy period of time after discovering he had slept with a transgender character. The episode also contained anti-trans language and defamatory characterizations.

Nip/Tuck (FX), which featured a storyline about a transgender woman who regretted her transition, a transgender sex worker being beaten, and an entire season about a psychopathic trans woman depicted as a baby-stealing sexual predator who sleeps with her own son

Yeah, thats quite a bit to take in. Imagine how I feel as a transgender woman who is a parent of two daughters who could easily be influenced by the media and change their mindset. It won't happen because they think their Dad is a pretty fabulous woman but you understand where I am coming from. What people do not understand is that this is influencing you the reader and everyone else around both of us. From the morning coffee, I get and the woman referring to me as "Sir" three times, to the man who spat a thick loogie on my face and shoved me at the Melbourne Central Tram stop with no help from the crowd, the man who took a photo of me having dinner with my friend and laughed with his girlfriend (my friend confronted him and his girlfriend told him to delete it), to the woman who told another woman on the train home "Look at him hes a pervert, and there are children on this train", to the husband of a friend sending me inappropriate propositions because he prefers "trans women over real women". Imagine trying to find a job with prejudices like this in the minds of the hiring manager or fellow employees. Often I have to just hope it passes quickly when I am in those moments so I can scurry home. Oh, and the pervert comment came after I spoke at a large conference with a night of networking with great success. Not an easy road to continue travelling.

SO... I was asked to be a chairperson/MC of a workshop for inclusion and diversity. One of the many things I have been doing as an LGBTIQ+ consultant as my side hustle. I noticed that there was little to no conversation still on this topic. Even the fireside chat that was held was about LGBTIQ+ as a whole but not on WHAT the community was facing apart from what we went through with marriage equality. It is believed in many circles that marriage equality was THE hurdle the entire Rainbow Community was dealing with when it wasn't true at all and only could help one issue facing the wider communities. Now I want to make sure I am not intending to come across as though I am bagging the event organisers. If anything Aventedge were fantastic and so accommodating, I can't wait to do more work with them.

This is to call out ALL event organisers who want to host an event to raise awareness on important issues that Human Resource and D&I employees need to be aware of.

In six years it is always the same topics and I am not confident that we are following the trends of who is at risk the most. Of course, we focus more on the oppression we face the most individually, but still, I don't think thats the case. I also know that the only Transgender related material that comes across your news desk is either political, trans-kid-related or LGBTIQ+ as a whole. Oh or Caitlyn Jenner or the Kardashians... People are really obsessed with this family. The truth there's a very good chance that there is already someone either personally or professionally Transgender in your life but they might never feel safe enough to tell you.  I stood there at the podium and looked over the crowd after reviewing my presenters material over the last hour while having my coffee. The crowd was the exact opposite of the presenters, which is good because I hate echo chambers of people but I think I was kind of hoping to see some change. Just hope that maybe those of us who are fighting for our right to exist may have broken through the barrier and got in so they could open the doors of change and help influence the change needed in an organisation. This felt far from happening. I spoke and introduced people as they came to speak. The crowd was engaged and had a laugh as I intended because if we aren't laughing we aren't learning I always say, but people were a bit standoffish.

There was one woman who was a woman who was polite and chatty and I stood in line after my involvement in the fireside chat and no one spoke to me or tried to approach me. I do this to test a crowd often and see what kind of vibe there would be. but it wasn't until the end of this event where I have my wrap up notes that the organisers ask me to share my own brief story I shared with them to the attendees. I shared a bit of what I shared with you above. There were gasps and shock. I asked the crowd "Who here has never met a transgender person that they were aware of?" A large portion of the crowd held their hand up. I felt my heart sink. "How many of you have Transgender employees, that you are aware of?" the crowd replied with various replies of "none, no". I could not see myself anywhere in that room nor could I see positive pathways that any of us could put an application in and feel confident we wouldn't feel uncomfortable or "safe" as it is called in the Transgender community.

When I come to meet them or even you as the HR/D&I rep in your oganisation you tend to pull out multiple spreadsheet matrix's to discuss the messages and focus of your own D&I initiatives and it's usually around "gender equality" or "Aboriginal" focus. Which I totally agree and you should be doing this but the truth is: they are safe topics. The focus beyond these two topics isn't as strong because people aren't educating themselves on these issues or it doesn't affect them directly. Now if you or someone in your executive team are women over 50 the chances of your focus on this cohort as a priority increases dramatically. SO I am going to challenge you to put down the matrix and the weak skinny soy chai half cap and listen carefully: Please put the HUMAN back in human resources. Ask yourself why you got into this field, to begin with. I am going to assume if you are in this field you are probably between 30-45 cisgender female, heterosexual (maybe potentially bi but that girl you kissed in Uni may not exactly count), and you want to make a change in women's issues especially the ones facing unequal pay and how unfair the patriarchy is. But I want to help you be more aware of the things you can't see and be able to be amazeballs at your job. When you do come to us to speak and help you be more educated we know you are dedicated to making the changes we need as well, except when we are told there is no funding in the budget for this sort of thing. Usually, this is our main source of income now. I like many others can't get a conversation with a hiring manager to have an interview and we have to resort to drastic measures to find income. I learned quick I needed to start coming door to door and having a coffee and conversation with anyone who would answer, no different from the old Tupperware salesmen in the early 20th century. I can assure you though when I meet others like you, and we do end up having a connection, and I come in and do education with your staff, we tend to become allies of each other going forward, again its been six years now and there is still so much work to be done.

So why is all of this important? Look at this graphic above. This is the global KNOWN murder rates of transgender people, primarily women and those of colour, in 2017-2018. Usually, I share this in my training and eyes go wide. This issue is not changing, the numbers are not lowering. If anything it is increasing and has been increasing yearly since 2013. Now, so you know there are known data limitations in reporting on sex- and gender-diverse populations in Australia. The available information reported is limited to gay, lesbian and bisexual people. It is currently not possible to accurately describe the exact stats of LGBTIQ+ people in Australia due to the lack of national population-based data collections that include relevant data items. This situation could be dealt with by developing a nationally agreed set of LGBTIQ+ data items for inclusion in population based-surveys and administrative data sets, where relevant. Stats we teend to work from are from Canada, US, And UK or from stats collected in individual workplaces. Unfortunately, what is reported back in Australia they are either groups lumped together eg.. entire LGBTIQ+ or from employees who are afraid to be open.

So the stats below we have to work with are global and we know it is the same situation here in Australia:

• More than four in 10 transgender people are currently working are underemployed.
• Transgender workers are nearly four times more likely than the population as a whole to have a household income of under $10,000 (15% vs. 4% at the time the workers were surveyed)
• One in four Trans employees reports experiencing employment discrimination in the last five years.
• The Transgender unemployment rate is 5 times higher than the national average.
• Over one quarter (27%) of transgender people who held or applied for a job in the last year reported being fired, not hired, or denied a promotion due to their gender identity.
• More than three-quarters of transgender employees take steps to avoid mistreatment in the workplace.
• Nearly one in 10 Trans employees have left a job because the environment was unwelcoming.
• 52.8 per cent of Trans employees report that discrimination negatively affected their work environment.
• In 2017, more than one in four Trans adults struggled to put food on the table.
• 71% of Trans people faced discrimination in housing, public accommodations and jobs.

My goal here is to help strike a match and start this conversation. I know I have cheeky tone in my wording and also quite serious, but I am just trying to keep this conversation real and as short as I possibly can. I am just a parent who is trying to have a fair go as any other person on this spinning blue marble and realise that if you aren't aware then you can't help. To those of you in my connections, all 1600+, who have been amazing allies along the way please share and help build this conversation more. To those of you who are new to this thanks for reading and taking a start to learn more. Make sure you message me after and let's meet up and have that coffee and help make a change for those who are in need.

Michelle / "Mama Mish"