Companies may have made it clear that diversity and inclusion efforts are at the top of their priority list, but the recent political climate — which is challenging the rights of the queer community — will put their promises to the test.
So far in 2023, 498 anti-transgender bills have been proposed across 49 states, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker, which tracks legislation that seeks to block trans people from receiving basic healthcare, education, legal recognition or the right to publicly exist. Currently, 361 proposals are awaiting a decision; 44 have passed and 93 have failed.
That's left trans and nonbinary employees nationwide — particularly those living in impacted states — wondering what this means for their health and safety in the workforce. It's also left executives wondering what they can do to better support their teams. Sarah Reynolds, chief marketing officer at software company HiBob, understands both versions of concern.
Read more: Trans employees need more support from their employers
"I am an openly nonbinary, trans, queer, disabled person who occupies a unique role in the C-suite," says Reynolds, who uses the pronouns they and them. "It's critically important that all of us who are open and all of us who are leaders in the workplace — regardless of your gender identity — take a moment and consider how we can protect the folks who work in our organizations who might identify differently than we do, or who might identify somewhere outside of the normal Western gender binary."
According to a recent survey from McKinsey, 86% of trans and nonbinary workers have never had a leader who looks or identifies like them. With more and more states proposing discriminatory legislation — such as Iowa's approved ban of gender affirming surgery for minors, and Florida's "don't say gay" law — it's critical that companies have a proactive plan to maintain their DEI efforts and prepare for potential challenges brought on by national or state regulations.
"Especially if you're an HR practitioner, you need to make sure you are not waiting for the courts to decide to protect trans people's right to work or exist in a public space," Reynolds says. "As an employer you can take a stand and put an anti-discrimination clause into employee handbooks to make it clear to the organization where you stand on protecting those individuals."
Reynolds recently spoke with EBN and spoke about how employers can maintain safe environments for all of their employees.
How did your experience shape your willingness to self-identify at work — and make it a part of your role in the C-suite?
I used to hide my gender identity at work. And if I look back at my experience, I thought for a very long time that being open about who I was or asking people to use my pronouns was going to distract them from my competency. It actually took a negative experience in the workplace to change that. Somebody said, "I think that using the pronouns that you use is optional, and I don't want to use them so I'm not even going to try." That woke me up and made me realize that I had an opportunity — as someone who doesn't have to worry about my physical safety in the workplace and who had a title and the privilege to be able to live out loud as themselves — to be an example for others.
[When reports show that queer people have] never seen a leader who looked or seemed like them, that was certainly my experience growing up. I've had the tremendous opportunity now to meet openly queer, nonbinary and trans leaders in the tech community, but I didn't have that when I was coming up in the early part of my career. If I can change that for even just one other person, then all of the challenges of coming out at work and all of the challenges associated with being openly nonbinary in an executive position will be worth it.
What are some of the biggest challenges you've witnessed, both as an employee and an executive?
I've worked on some of those great teams where leaders wanted to hear from all of the different voices — they understood the value of diverse teams and wanted to encourage that in the organization. They made it safe for you to disagree, or to share that alternative opinion or to raise a concern that was personally impacting you. I've also worked in organizations where that wasn't the case, where folks didn't understand the value of diversity. When we would have conversations about something as simple as diversity recruiting, people would push back and say, "I don't understand why this is important, shouldn't we just hire the most qualified person?" And it was almost funny how the "most qualified" person was always a cisgender, white man who was 50 years old and had the same personality as their boss.
I've had tremendously positive experiences in the workforce where I tell people my pronouns and they pick them up flawlessly, and I've had negative experiences where people have laughed at me. People have said, "No, you look like a she/her and you were assigned she/her at birth and I'm going to call you she/her." It's not really a rational discussion for those folks. It'd be like if I met you and said, "I know that you told me that your name is Paola, but you look like a Susan to me. I think you were assigned Susan at birth. So I'm just gonna call you Susan." That would be outrageous. Pronouns are not a preference. Pronouns are as critical to who you are as your name or the pronunciation of your name.
What are some of the steps an organization can take to make sure they're prepared to support employees in scenarios like that?
When I introduced myself I said, "I'm queer, I am disabled, I am nonbinary, but you wouldn't know any of those things by looking at me, and I need to tell you that." But I also need to trust that the organization is going to make good choices about that information if I volunteer it. It shouldn't entirely be on the shoulders of the trans and nonbinary members of the queer community in your organization to do that work for you.
Read more: PwC is giving trans employees $75k for their healthcare costs
Make sure that you have policies in place in your employee handbook about what happens if someone wants to transition at work. I used to work at a really large Fortune 500 company and I was the first person that I knew of to ever put those policies to the test, and it was a bumpy ride. You need to have some sort of organizational readiness.
If you could speak directly to employers on why this is critical not only for their culture, but for their business, what would you say?
First, let's talk to the spreadsheet people in the room. Employee engagement can go down as much as 30% in an unfriendly environment, and pretty much every person knows that unengaged employees are less productive. They're less efficient, they're less committed to the outcome of the organization. So if you care about the numbers on a spreadsheet, you should care about that.
You should also care about the fact that there's an organization called the Center for American Progress, which estimates that it costs U.S employers $64 billion a year to replace employees who've departed because they experienced discrimination or unfairness in the workforce. And that's not just trans and nonbinary employees, that's employees of all walks of life — but that is a huge number. You should know that when it comes to trans people, specifically, only 21 states and Washington, D.C., have banned discrimination outright when it comes to housing, jobs and public spaces. So if you operate across the whole U.S., you cannot wait for the courts to decide to protect trans people.
Read more: This new tech platform helps young queer professionals connect with inclusive companies
There's an element of this that is simply doing the right thing. But there's also a business case to be made for why this really matters to your organization's bottom line, your productivity, your ability to retain employees and your ability in this era to do more with less.
What are some steps you've taken to achieve these goals at your own organization?
Whether it's at HiBob or in previous positions one thing that I have always been really clear about is just being visible. I list my pronouns on my social media profiles and in my email signature. I talked to someone the other day who called that "the bat signal," as if to quietly say: you are in a safe space. I have a Lego pride set around here somewhere in my dining room-slash-office, and I make it visible to the employees I work with and to the broader community of folks and clients that I work with. It's important to recognize days like International Transgender Day of Visibility. I work with our ERG internally to make sure that we are educating our employees about these issues. No organization is perfect. We're all just on this journey of progress together.
