It’s More Than Pronouns: Building Real Trans Inclusion at Work
About this Episode
In this episode of DEI Will Not DIE, Dr Bree Gorman explores what structural inclusion looks like for trans and gender-diverse people and why adding pronouns to emails is only a small first step.
Join Bree as they explain how real inclusion happens when HR databases, payroll systems and policies are examined, along with the processes that determine how people’s identities are recorded, respected, and protected.
This episode is both a reality check and a practical guide for organisations that want to move beyond surface-level inclusion and build workplaces where trans and gender diverse people are genuinely safe and supported.
What You'll Learn
The importance of ensuring structural inclusion systems are safe and transparent
Why your organisation must have a gender affirmation plan regardless of size
How valuable lived experience is for DEI policies to avoid harmful assumptions about gender
The harm you can cause by relying on the one trans employee in your organisation to review policies
Resources Mentioned
Learn how to create LGBTIQA+ inclusive workplaces here.
Read my blog: The Intent vs. The Impact: Moving Beyond Performative Trans Inclusion
Contact me to receive your gender affirming template at info@breegorman.com
Keep Learning & Connect With Bree
Want practical strategies for navigating resistance and building real momentum in your DEI work? Access my free webinar on evidence-based DEI strategies here. It’s packed with tools you can start using today.
If this episode sparked ideas or questions and you want to talk more about how I can support your team or organisation, book a free 20-minute callwith me. I’d love to hear what you’re working on and explore how we can move the work forward—together.
And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter for fresh insights, events, and tools to support your inclusion journey. Because real change doesn’t happen in silence.
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[00:00:00] Is DEI dead? Not even close. I'm Bree Gorman and this is DEI will not die the podcast for people doing the real work of inclusion. Whether you are leading a team shaping DEI strategy or just trying to make change that lasts. You're in the right place. We will cut through the fluff and dig into practical insights that will help you lead with clarity, courage, and impact.
Want more tools and support? Head to breegorman.com.
So on today's episode, you've just got me. I'm gonna be talking about trans and gender diverse inclusion in the workplace. So buckle in should be a good episode. Even, i'm like thinking this is gonna be a good episode. No, of course I am. It's one of my favorite topics and also obviously overlaps with my.
[00:01:00] Lived experience, so looking forward to diving in. Firstly, I want to acknowledge the Wadderang people on whose lands that I live, work, and play on and pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and a call out to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are listening to the podcast or perhaps any First Nations people who are tuning in from around the globe.
So, yes, I wanna talk about trans and gender diverse inclusion today. And firstly, I'll just kind of give my standpoint to the topic. Clearly, I'm a trans non-binary person. I came out as non-binary oh, in my late thirties, but I knew from the age of four, that I did not feel like a girl did not want to be a girl.
It didn't seem to make sense to me, I didn't fit into that category, I didn't talk the way I was supposed to, I didn't move and walk the way I was supposed to, and I wasn't interested in the things [00:02:00] that I was supposed to be interested in. Now, of course, that's complex because of gender stereotypes and gendered expectations.
And of course, girls and women can be interested in remote control cars and cricket like I was as a child. But there's also more to it than that, and so for me as a 4-year-old, I didn't have that language, but I was very angry. I was angry that people were seeing me and viewing me as a girl. And so it was a long time and a long life of being a girl and living as a woman before I truly understood my own gender identity and was able to give it a name and was able to ask people to start using different pronouns for me, and life instantly felt a little lighter.
It really did, it was something that allowed me to blossom more fully. I've been very privileged in that this has not been a detractor from my work working in diversity, [00:03:00] equity, and inclusion spaces, but I want to acknowledge that privilege up front, not just as someone who has, work privilege in that I'm a trans person.
I experience transphobia regularly because of the spaces I put myself in working as an inclusion educator and trainer. But I also don't have a boss or an organisation or a structure that I'm having to work within that is inherently transphobic or inherently has barriers for trans and gender diverse people because I work for myself.
And you know, that's definitely one part of the reason why I do choose to work for myself. I'm also, talking on this issue as a white person, and I recognise the added barriers and systemic discrimination and exclusion that trans people of colour experience and really want to kind of put that out on the table, that that's not my experience.
I try wholeheartedly to [00:04:00] apply an intersectional lens to the work that I do in this space, but recognise that I don't, and will never fully understand the experiences of trans people, of colour, of trans people with disabilities or people with other marginalised identities. So that's just to kind of put a little bit of framing on the conversation.
This conversation is not about culture wars, and it is not about gender politics or whatever phrases and framing that people like to put on this topic. This topic is about how our workplaces and our systems continue to exclude trans and gender diverse people to make. Their lives harder. In a world that currently is not super easy to be trans and workplaces have this great opportunity to create a safe space to create inclusion in a world that doesn't always feel inclusive and safe.
And so that's what I wanna talk about and focus on today, is how we adapt our organisational systems and structures to be more [00:05:00] inclusive of people beyond the gender binary. Beyond cisgender folks, so I will use that term a bit. For those who are unfamiliar, cisgender refers to those whose gender aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth and transgender folks.
Uh, those of us whose gender does not align with the sex that we were assigned at birth. So I might use some other words during the episode that you're unfamiliar with. If I do and I haven't described them, please feel free to send me a note and I'm ha always happy to provide that 101 education.
That's my job, no question is a silly question as long as it's asked respectfully and with genuine curiosity. So we're gonna talk about organisational structural change. What patterns do I see? You know, I worked with an organisation once, well it was a client, they booked a consultation call and we had a chat and they said, Bree, we wanna roll out pronouns in the organisation.[00:06:00]
So for those of you who do know a fair bit about this work, you know, instantly the heckles are up on the back of my neck. What do they mean? They wanna roll out pronouns? Everybody already has pronouns that are used to describe them. What does rolling out pronouns mean? And it indicated to me that there was obviously good intent there to do something in the space of trans and gender diverse inclusion, but a really low level of knowledge and understanding about the experiences of trans people and also then what to do about it.
So, no, we're not gonna roll out pronouns, and the first step that you take in creating a more trans inclusive workplace is not gonna be adding pronouns to email signatures. That's a great thing to do, and visibility is important, but it's, to me, that's not the first step. And it's not all about pronouns.
Hence, the topic of this episode beyond pronouns. Pronouns is one [00:07:00] aspect of ways in which a system does exclude separate, create difference between cisgendered people and transgendered people in the fact that yes, people are regularly misgendered in the workplace, despite asserting what their pronouns are, despite having perhaps wearing a pronoun pin, having pronouns on their email signatures or on their zoom names.
It's a constant microaggression that is happening daily for, pretty much most transgender diverse people in workplaces. Certainly those who are non-binary or other gender identities where they're choosing to use, where they have they them pronouns as their pronouns, it's they and them, but also for people, trans women and trans men are also experiencing misgendering on a regular basis, and it's a real issue that needs addressing for sure.
But I don't think we really get to address that in a meaningful way until we've looked at the structures and the systems [00:08:00] and how we are creating, inclusion across the structures. So I'll talk about some more examples around that soon. One other example I wanna share that I hear very often though, is I had one leader Waltz into a training session.
It was LGBTIQA plus inclusion training for leaders. And I say waltzed because, and I think he would describe it this way too. He literally waltzed in late about 10, 15 minutes late with a coffee cup in hand, walked in, I'm mid-sentence and he is like, Hey everyone, I'm here. Sorry I'm late. So he is interrupted me.
He's made a scene, he sat down and he is wearing a rainbow lanyard. So, you know, I can see that there's a bit of character here and there's a little bit of play going on here in the way that he's, shown up and attended. So anyway, he asked some really good questions. We're having really great conversations about inclusive leadership, particularly in relation to this space, and he [00:09:00] seems to be quite a good ally, you would say, by the way that he's showing up in the session.
After that introduction, then though, we get to a group activity and I'm hovering over his group and he says. Well, you know, I just don't think pronouns matter, like it just doesn't matter, whatever, you know? I don't care what pronouns people use for me, I don't, pronouns aren't a thing. So I taken a little bit of a deep breath, get ready to kind of have this conversation, and then, you know what?
I thought this guy's a bit of fun, he's got a bit of attitude. Maybe let's try something a little bit different. So I just listened and I walked on, continued the session then for the rest of the session, just jokingly, but also seriously, I use she, her pronouns for this leader for the rest of the session.
And she laughed, he laughed, he [00:10:00] got the point. And by the end of the session he came up to me and he said, okay, I totally get it. I do care about pronouns and yeah, point taken. Gonna work on this, got lots to learn. What? Humility, right? Like, and you know, I wasn't shaming him. This was, you know, based on rapport that he and I had built over that session that I.
I knew that this would be a safe move, so I don't wanna recommend this move. I haven't done it before and I haven't done it since it was particularly unique to that circumstance. But well-intentioned people just find this topic, this conversation really confusing, and just when they think they get a part of it.
They're kind of shown that they're not, and so I think we have to be gentle with people. We have to provide that level of education that's required, that this can be hard work, that you're not gonna know everything. You don't have to know everything. We need to work at it, and it's [00:11:00] gonna take time and it's gonna take listening to people who have experiences of exclusion around their gender identities.
So I've gone off track a little bit there, but, beyond pronouns, I guess is what I'm saying. Yes. We need to do work around pronouns. It is not the only thing, and it's probably not the place where we really wanna start when we are talking about trans and gender diverse inclusion, other organisations.
They'll run a lunch and learn, which, hey, I put my hand up, I'm happy to run lunch and learns on this topic, but it can't be the only thing you do. Again, it's not gonna shift the needle. It's gonna bring some people into the conversation. A couple of people are gonna take a couple of things away from from the chat, and that's a good positive thing.
We need to do awareness raising activities, but it's not the only thing we should be doing. The other thing I see done wrong all the time, it's not black and white. There's not a right and wrong, but that I think sometimes is not helpful for this work is we write a policy. [00:12:00] Or maybe we have our DEI policy, our inclusion policy, and it mentions that we are inclusive of, of people of all genders and sexual identities or something along that phrasing.
Quite often those policies are just not written from the right. Place they use actually harmful language. They, misrepresent people with trans and gender diverse identities and experiences. They can make things worse because if we've got our definition of gender wrong in our inclusion policy, then the whole thing falls over.
So I would highly recommend if you've got a diversity, equity and inclusion policy. Please make sure that someone who is an expert in trans and gender diverse inclusion has actually had a look at it to let you know that you're on the right track or that you've relied on. Good professional sources of [00:13:00] information to be able to inform the language that you're using and the things that you've put in that policy.
I see so many of them that have tried, but have used a a word or some language or a statement that, ugh, makes me ick. This language is always changing in this space, and so I always say we need to keep it updated, refreshed. We need to follow the, the latest evidence, the latest research, the latest experiences that a people are having.
So if your DEI policy hasn't been looked at through that transgender diverse inclusion lens, you know, spend some time trying to find someone who can do that. Of course, here's the plug. I can always do that, but, you know, there's other people that can as well. What I often see though is organisations going to the one trans person who works for them and saying, Hey, how does this sound?
Now that trans person may also have a lot of knowledge and experience around this language and this work and policy settings, but they may not. And the problem is one person's experience of transness is not [00:14:00] the same as somebody else's. So I would just kind of encourage you to go beyond that one trans person because also you put in a lot of emotional load and weight on their shoulders that they probably don't really need, but they might not be.
A professional in this space, they might just be somebody with lived experience that is super important to understand and hear their thoughts about how the policy works, what's needed, what's not, how it sounds, and also seek more than just that one voice, is what I'm saying, to ensure that you are covering what is a very diverse community of people.
So I've kind of gone on at length about what we shouldn't be doing, but really what is it that we want people to be doing? What does structural inclusion look like in this space? Let's talk about systems first, and by that I am gonna talk about specifically data systems, payroll [00:15:00] systems, HR systems. This is a really complex issue and often becomes the blocker to organisations doing anything further.
So the first thing I'll say is if your systems change around data, hr, collection, payroll, it feels way too hard. Move on to something else, but at the same point, don't just let it go. Like this is important, vital stuff that we need to get right if we wanna create safety for trans and gender diverse people.
And for those of you in jurisdictions where there is psychosocial safety legislation, this matters now more than ever. If you are unwittingly outing somebody in the workplace, particularly in the global climate, you are creating, unsafety for them. You are opening them up to potential transphobia that they might not have been experiencing until your system messed up.
You are [00:16:00] creating unsafety for them, you are outing them without their permission, perhaps when they're not ready, when they don't want to. When they don't deem that it is safe to be out. In that particular team workplace, a study setting, which I spent a lot of time working with universities on this. So we have to tackle this issue if you've got updates happening for your systems in the future, plan, forward plan for trans and gender diverse inclusion.
So yes, there should be more than two genders that people can identify as sex and gender are different things. Where do we hold chosen names? Where do we hold legal names and who has access to that different type of information. Where do we store pronouns? Is there a spot to store pronouns? Is it safe to store pronouns on the system that we're trying to save it?
Save them on, I worked with one organisation that was really keen to start capturing pronouns in its HR system, and I asked it to take a few steps back and really [00:17:00] review the privacy of those systems and whether they felt like it was safe to collect that information on someone, on their HR record. In this current global climate, things have changed.
My advice on this was very different three, four years ago than what it is now. If we're asking people to share their identity, and if we're linking that to their HR record, then we absolutely need to be very clear about who has access to that information and who doesn't, and how it can be used, chosen names, where do they show up?
You know, when I'm working in the university sector, this is super important. The amount of experiences of students who have been deadnamed, so had their birth name revealed rather than their chosen name in their first lesson. Of their course. It's horrific. It's awful that somebody would be outed from day one.
In a study environment where they're trying to succeed, they're trying to perform and be their best, and they're instantly distracted from that, and often [00:18:00] worse now at threat of discrimination, bullying, harassment, we have to get this stuff right. Systems is definitely where I'd say people need to start data systems for sure.
Second point is, do you have a gender affirmation policy, process, guidelines? Available in your organisation? If not, why not? There's no real excuse for this. It's quite simple to get one up. There's lots of examples out there. I have a template you can access through me. This is not a horribly complicated process, but this allows us to do the planning so that when, not if, when the next person comes and says they want to transition or affirm their gender in the workplace.
We have a process for it, we have guidelines for it. We have support for managers, and we have support for the staff or employees who are seeking that change. And for HR, IT the rest of it. So we know what needs to happen and when. Now we [00:19:00] recognise in that process that everybody's, journey is different. So it always needs to be person centered, person led, but there are things that we know might need to come into play in these processes.
So we have planned for them, we have worked out how it happens, the contact people, we are reducing the number of, people that the person needs to disclose this information to. We are providing them opportunity to say who they want to have this information and who they don't want to have this information, what they'd like done with their team, whether they'd like some training done, whether they'd like, whether they need some access to different facilities.
You know, all of those things can be captured in this affirmation guide and therefore people to work their way through. Super vital and important, and hopefully that also includes some leave. Which is best practice for sure, and has been for, you know, a good decade. Now, don't have much time to go further into the [00:20:00] details of that, but encourage you to reach out, encourage you to do some Googling.
There's examples out there, it doesn't matter what size organisation you have, you are in. You need one of these policies and procedures and in these guidelines that support your gender affirmation plan. Policy is the opportunity to really make strong statements about who you are as an organisation, and this protects trans and gender diverse people, LGBTIQA plus people more broadly from global and political change.
Yes, those things are gonna happen outside of the workplace, but our workplace is clear. We have this policy, we have this procedure, this is how we respect and honor the dignity of trans and gender diverse individuals in our workplaces, and this is practically how we do it. So it's not political, it's just practical.
Okay, so that were the main topics I wanted to cover. So if you've got a gender affirmation process plan guide in place, [00:21:00] and if you've sorted out your systems as best as you can, and perhaps you've created some workarounds for the systems that you can't potentially change, then you're in a good position to move on to things like.
Awareness raising, you know, true training for leaders around that gender affirmation process and plan. You might be able to look at other ways in which you're going to lean in and support the trans and gender diverse community in your organisation. So, you know, potentially, which we've done multiple times, is run some focus groups for trans and gender diverse people.
In your workplace, understand what barriers they're facing, understand how these new systems are working for them or not working. We need that constant consultation. 'cause I promise you, if you are not transgender, if you're not gender diverse, you are highly unlikely to, see or notice the barriers that we might be facing on a daily basis.
So keep talking, keep listening, and most of all, be human, we're all humans. We're all seeking [00:22:00] connection in the workplace. We're wanting to, you know, embody our values and work towards the organisations objectives. And we can do that, and we can do that in a way that's supportive and acknowledges that we're not all the same.
And that's okay. We can learn to create these experiences that are much more positive and much more affirming than perhaps what trans people have experienced in the past.
Well, that's it for today's episode of DEI will not die. Want more resources and support to do the work Well, why don't you visit breegorman.com and don't forget to follow or share this episode with someone who cares, and maybe also someone who should.