Introducing sexual orientation and gender identity monitoring

By Caroline Jones

The introduction of equality monitoring is never without resistance, from ethnic monitoring in the early 1980s to sexual orientation and gender identity monitoring today.

Since 1998, Diversity Solutions’ company directors, Caroline Jones and Linda Bellos, have been actively involved in promoting sexual orientation monitoring alongside other equality monitoring. Pioneered by the London Borough of Waltham Forest, where Caroline worked as an Equalities Manager, sexual orientation monitoring is now mainstreamed and promoted by many LGBT organisations.

Caroline and Linda have consulted extensively with the LGBT community on the sexual orientation and gender identity monitoring questions that are used in the ‘Information About You’ staff survey pages. These questions are integrated with the company’s online equality and diversity courses. They also recommend that employers should read the guidance on LGBT monitoring issued by the Trades Union Congress. This is available on the LGBT equality section of their website at www.tuc.org.uk

The most important answer to the sexual orientation monitoring questions is whether or not an LGBT person feels safe enough to be out at work. The responses to this question should enable employers to consider if any action is needed to make the workplace safer for lesbians, gay men or bisexual people who do not feel comfortable about being out at work.

For trans people, the legal landscape has changed significantly in the last few years, both in respect of improved employment protection under amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and rights acquired under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which gives trans people the legal right to live in their acquired gender. The word ‘trans’ is used here to include people who identify as either transgender or transsexual.

The great majority of people live without any problems in the gender they were assigned at birth. Some do not, and may live for part of their daily lives in the opposite gender. Some trans people seek full re-assignment, which involves surgery and ongoing medical support.

In designing our course material, we include references to gender identity together with all other strands. It would have seemed strange if, having included this diversity strand, we then proceeded to ignore it in the staff survey pages that are integrated with our online courses.

When organisations conduct gender identity monitoring, and few currently do so, they generally ask a question that can offend and alienate many trans people. It also confuses non-trans people. The question usually asked is about whether or not someone identifies as transgender - male to female, or transgender - female to male. We had also previously asked in our course material.

Our consultation with Press for Change in June 2006 told us that this question would only be answered by a relatively small part of the trans community. The majority of trans people would ignore it.

Since everyone has a gender identity, the questions below, recommended by Press for Change, ask people about their gender identity in a more inclusive way.

How do you describe your gender?

1. Is your gender the same as the gender you were assigned at birth? Yes/No

2. Do you live full time in the gender role opposite to that assigned at birth? Yes/No

3. Do you feel able to discuss your gender identity with colleagues at work? Yes/No

4. With some people, but not all? Yes/No

The answers to the first two monitoring questions agreed with Press for Change are designed to assess the numbers of trans people in an employers workforce.

The answers to the third and fourth questions will enable employers to assess whether or not a trans person feels safe enough to be out at work. The responses to these questions should enable employers to consider if any action is needed to make the workplace safer for all LGBT people, including trans people, who do not feel comfortable about being out at work.

A very important part of the Gender Recognition Act is about the right to privacy and confidentiality. The Gender Recognition Act safeguards the privacy of trans people by defining information relating to gender recognition as ‘protected information’. Under the Act, it is a criminal offence to disclose this protected information if it has been acquired in an official capacity. There are some limited exceptions to this rule.

Diversity Solutions’ system of encrypted data collection satisfies the requirement to protect information related to gender recognition. Our company policy is to allow such monitoring only where organisations have a license for more then 500 learning participants. Smaller numbers may risk identification of the very small group of trans people who will initially respond to gender identity monitoring questions.

Press for Change is a political lobbying and educational organisation, which campaigns to achieve equal civil rights and liberties for all transgender people in the United Kingdom, through legislation and social change. For more information about Press for Change, see www.pfc.org.uk

posted by Linda Bellos @ 1:57 PM