Canadian HR Reporter

Canadian HR RepoRteR october 20, 2014 NEws 3 Unfair biases dramatically — many trans men Schilt interviewed faced terrible discrimination in the workplace. But others — especially those who were heterosexual, educated, tall and white — began experiencing some advantages, she found. "ey reported a greater sense of authority. So people would ask them less frequently to defend their opinion. If they stated some- thing, people would just sort of accept that — particularly men — and weren't constantly saying, 'Well, how do you know that?' or 'I don't think that's right.' So greater authority, greater reward for the work that they were doing." Ben Barres, a neurobiologist at Stanford University in California, is one example. Barres identified and published as Barbara until his mid-40s, when he transitioned. A colleague who didn't realize that Barbara's and Ben's work was one and the same made a comment that Barres recounted in a 2006 paper in Nature: "Shortly after I changed sex, a faculty member was heard to say, 'Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's.'" A subject in Schilt's study re- called, "When I was a woman, no matter how many facts I had, peo- ple were like, 'Are you sure about that?' It's so strange not to have to defend your positions." Those who had worked as women in blue-collar jobs found they could do less work and get more positive feedback when working as men, said Schilt. "Some found themselves in jobs that they felt they would not have had if they had been working as women," he said. "Some of them would say, 'In 1985, women weren't really being hired in construction… And be- ing able to work as a man, I was able to get different kinds of work- place experiences and made more money than I would have working as a woman.'" Perception-based But not all trans men had advan- tages or positive experiences once they presented as male. Access to those "male advantages" seemed to be tempered by factors such as race, height and sexual orienta- tion, said Schilt. "So trans men who were tall, who were white and who were heterosexual reported having more access to these kinds of ben- efits," she said. "Which was true for cisgender men as well, so men who are not transgender. We know it's not just working as a man that gives you benefits — it's a particu- lar kind of man." It's important to note that other people's perceptions and assump- tions around gender roles are a significant factor, said Edwards — after his transition, he started no- ticing a lot more of the gender as- sumptions that were being made. At one point, he received a pro- motion to a senior-level role, but it hadn't been announced yet. "I was in an interior office and there was a girl who was maybe a year or two ahead of me in ex- perience, and there was a window office that opened up," he said. "She figured she would be next in line — but it went to me. And she started saying, 'Oh, now he's a guy so, of course, give the win- dow office to the guy.' What she didn't know was I was promoted and they hadn't announced it yet… and that's why I got it. "at's the jump people made: 'Oh yeah, he's a guy so, sure, give him special treatment...' I wasn't seeing it, but perhaps the women working there were seeing it." Edwards also started to be- come more cognizant of situa- tions that might make female col- leagues uncomfortable, he said. "e creative departments in ad agencies tend to be boys' clubs because it is more male-dominat- ed… I was accepted into this club now and guys talk a certain way. And in advertising, there's a lot of swearing, a lot of jokes that are probably inappropriate. "So what I did notice was that I had more empathy that in a creative meeting of 10 people, there might be one woman in the room. And how does she feel if these comments or things are being said that are inappropri- ate? So I would notice that, I'd be more on alert." Another thing he noticed was a tendency for women to usually be the note-takers in meetings — even women at senior levels. Edwards never got the impres- sion that the agency was discrim- inatory, he said. But if you ask women, "they might notice things differently." Lessons for employers So what can employers learn from the insights trans men bring around gender in the workplace? "One is, as much as people don't like to think of themselves as bi- ased, (my study) really shows that people hold a lot of ideas about gender — what they expect, what kinds of jobs people are hired for, what they're seen as good at or not good at, and that makes a big dif- ference in a worker's trajectory," said Schilt. "Many of the trans men I inter- viewed would say because they'd had the experience of working as both women and men… they could see very clearly how men sort of passed over women who were just as qualified. And they were able to kind of call it out and say, 'Hey, this woman's been work- ing here for a long time, maybe she should have this position.' But their sense was that it wasn't something that most cisgender men would notice on their own." e other important point is that unfair biases are not limited to women in the workplace. "Many transgender people also face discrimination," said Schilt. "Getting authority and compe- tence doesn't necessarily mean that you don't also face forms of discrimination… many times, transgender people are working in very precarious environments. And what I found was the way (to) really make those environ- ments better for transgender workers really does come from people in HR, and people who are managers. "How those people handle the transition really shapes people's experiences." boYs' ClUb < pg. 2

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