Primark faces £47K bill for transgender discrimination

An employment tribunal has told Primark to adopt a policy on how to deal with transgender staff after it found an employee was discriminated against in relation to gender reassignment. Do you have a policy in place? And if yes, does it cover language, loos, complaints and confidentiality? How would your policy prevent the discrimination experienced by the Primark employee? Do the experiences of your trans employees or students match the profound discrimination experienced by trans people that has just been highlighted in a new Stonewall report?

Alexandra De Souza E Souza informed Primark that she was transgender when she applied for a job. Her birth name – Alexander – appeared on her passport, but she told the interviewer that she would like to be called Alexandra. The interviewer said the company had to use her official name for pay, but she could use whatever name she liked on her name badge.

However, HR staff erroneously changed the preferred first name on the company’s IT system from Alexandra to Alexander, and her title from Miss to Mr. This error was printed on her name badge and daily allocation sheets that were handed to supervisors on the shop floor.

She experienced a number of incidents of discrimination including:

• Despite using her preferred name for a number of weeks, a supervisor began calling her Alexander and laughed when she was corrected.
• Other staff sprayed men’s perfume over her till until she started coughing
• Staff saying that she had ‘a man’s voice’
• made comments about her sexuality, and called her ‘evil’ and ‘a joke’.

There was also an incident when a colleague claimed there were ‘no ladies’ in the female toilets when an electrician needed access, despite Alexandra being there.

When she tried to make a complaint, she was simply told to calm down as she was ‘drawing attention to [herself]’.

At the tribunal, the judge said: ‘l this may well have been prevented had there been proper systems from the outset to preserve confidentiality for transgender employees. We find it shocking that the respondents could not devise a way of keeping the claimant’s legal name off the core allocation sheets and out of the knowledge of her supervisors.’ Alexandra was awarded £47,433.03 in compensation to cover injury to feelings and loss of pay and pension contributions.

Unfortunately, Alexandra is not alone. New research published by Stonewall in January 2018 reveals the daily discrimination faced by trans people. For example:

• one in eight trans employees have been physically attacked by a colleague or customer in the last year
• half of trans people have hidden their identity at work for fear of discrimination
• more than a third of trans students in higher education experienced negative comments or behaviour from staff in the last year

‘We are constantly questioned on our existence, treated hostilely and ridiculed in the name of debate. We are constantly exposed to hate and criticism in the media and daily life as the public respond to the media’s attitudes. I’m sick of being described as a mentally ill freak.’ Esme, 32 (Scotland)

‘I have recently started at a new university. I was laughed at, ridiculed, and became the butt of jokes that normally gender me as a woman. This has been constant since day one.’ Taylor, 23 (South East)

Ruth Hunt, Chief Executive of Stonewall, said: ‘This report exposes the devastating levels of discrimination and abuse that many trans people are subject to across all areas of their lives.’

You can download the Stonewall report here

One of my popular training courses is ‘LGBT equality - celebrating diversity, fostering good relations and tackling trans and homophobia.

The workshop:

• explores real-life case studies and scenarios dealing with difficult and challenging situations and how these should be addressed
• supports staff to gain the skills and confidence to tackle issues and language that they may feel uneasy about challenging
• explores potential challenges such as deeply held religious convictions
• raises understanding and awareness of trans issues and explores concerns such as loos and confidentiality
• clarifies legal requirements for collecting, evaluating and publishing LGBandT staff and student data
• explores Ofsted requirements

You can download information on this workshop here