Leo's Tip's for Anti Bullying Week

This week is Anti Bullying week and as far as I am aware for the first time CBBC has broadcast a documentary on the life struggles of a young trans boy called Leo.  Written by Leo this is an excellent insight into the life of a young trans person. His mother has always been hugely supportive of him despite having to "lose her daughter". 

I was really impressed with this documentary.  Leo is confident and full of life. It is clear from what he says that he has had to face considerable pressure from people and the media for simply being himself.  I hope that there is a way for this documentary to be seen widely by everyone, but especially other trans children and their parents and by schools, especially those like Leo's primary school who simply did not get what was going on and were therefore unable to provide the support needed, until Press for Change intervened.

Leo has also produced a short video outlining his 7 anti bullying tips.   This programme is part one in the new 8 part series My Life exploring the various life challenges faced by young people.

Gender is the second highest cause of bullying behind body shape and gender non conformity is the primary problem. Any child who does not conform to the huge societal pressure to be clearly male of female is liable to extreme bullying.  Sadly the attitude of many parents and staff to this is to add pressure on children to conform as a solution to stop the bullying.

Fortunately since 2010 when the Equality Act came into force there has been a steadily growing acceptance of the fact that some children are born with gender dysphoria and that they need support to cope with this condition. Last Month year Jazz Jennings, a 14 year old trans girl, published a book co authored with Jessica Herthel telling her story. This is one of the first books aimed specifically at educating young children and their parents about trans issues.

Amazon UK information

Click on the image to the right for more details on Amazon UK.

For the US Amazon site click here

If you have any influence on schools then please let them know about this book and encourage them to use it to help children understand what transgender is all about. There is lots more helpful information at Schools Out and Welcoming Schools 

The soaps have included trans characters from time to time although the prize for addressing the issues faced by young trans people must go to Hollyoaks who have had two significant trans stories over the past 5 years.

The first character was Jason Costello, a young trans man (female to male trans person) played by actress Victoria Atkins from August 2010. The character left in December 2011 to emigrate to America and start a new life as Jason where people would not be aware of his past. This story addressed the challenge of a young trans person coming out as trans to parents and friends, the complications that brings about in relationships and the inevitable bullying.

The second storyline is about to finish this week with the departure of Trans woman Blessing Chambers played by actress Modupe Adeyeye.  Introduced in February this year - she finally came out as trans in May  a young trans woman. On 21st November the character is leaving as a result of complications in her relationship with Dennis Savage played by actor Joe Tracini.  Perhaps next time they will try to find an trans actor to play the role.

If you have time I strongly recommend that you watch "I am Leo" which is on CBBC iPlayer for at least the next week and spread the word so that we can use this years Anti Bullying Week to start to make a real difference in stopping the gender based bullying that is currently responsible for almost a third or trans people attempting suicide. 

Top 40 radio DJ comes out as Stephanie

I got an call this morning from James Piekos at Radio Humberside this morning asking me to have a chat on the radio about the weekend announcement by DJ Simon Hirst that he will be changing gender today and will now be known as Stephanie. The show will be available on Iplayer for the next week - My interview was at just before 10.am on 13-10-2014

If you have not heard the interview with Stephanie by Steven Nolan on Radio 5 Live,  I certainly recommend it. It is rare that someone as high profile comes out so publicly, and I was really pleased to hear just how open she has decided to be about her life experiences that have led her to this very brave decision  this weekend.

What is sad is that she felt the need to have to quit her job as a top radio presenter first and hopefully radio stations having seen the overwhelming support she has received on Twitter and Facebook this weekend will be doing their best to get her back on the radio.

However I can really understand why Stephanie felt the need to retreat to the safety of personal space before making this decision public. I remember just how much fear I felt when I did the same nearly 15 years.ago.  As a top professional speaker I knew that there was no way to come out quietly and I had seen the way the media had treated trans people in the past.

In addition to delivering Transgender Awareness Training I also coach public speaking skills which many people see as their greatest fear in life. However in my experience its not speaking that we fear - it is the humiliation or embarrassment when we get it wrong that is the real fear.  I am convinced that the greatest fear for all for humans is ridicule - humiliation, embarrassment, loss of face, making a fool of ourselves - or however you want to describe it.

This fear of ridicule is so great that people often choose to kill or attempt to kill themselves rather than suffer. Between 30% and 40% of trans people attempt suicide, especially when young, because that is easier than risking coming out. I once refused to stop for the police when I was cross dressed, because I felt it would be better to be arrested later for failing to stop than risk the humiliation of being discovered dressed as a woman.

So I will repeat the advice I gave this morning on Radio Humberside, and this is not just about coming out as trans or gay - it is about having the courage to be yourself.  Find a few people who you really trust and come out to them first - get a support structure in place and then come out.  It is far better to come out than to have to face being outed and you will be surprised at how much support you receive.

And for the people who don't or can't accept who you really are - well they are not really the friends you thought they were. I am not saying that this is going to be easy - but you will be amazed to discover that being the "real you" is a much better life than constantly hiding and living in fear of discovery.

Magnus Hirschfeld - The First Pioneer of LGBT Rights

The importance of the work of Magnus Hirschfeld is only just coming into general public awareness, mostly because his work was ruthlessly silenced by the rise of the Nazi's in Germany in the 1930's. The more I look at his life, the more impressed I become with this brave and influential man.   

Born on 14th May 1868 to a prominent Jewish family in the German coastal town of Kolberg, now Kolobrzeg Poland, Hirschfeld studied medicine at various universities in Germany before travelling in the USA. In 1896 he moved to Berlin to study sex and sexuality and became an active and prominent Gay Rights campaigner.

He was an openly gay man and active member of Berlin’s gay community where he was known as “Aunt Magnesia.”  Homosexuality had been illegal in German since the 1871 under paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code and this had led to gay men leading double lives to keep their sexuality secret.  Inspired by the death of a gay patient who was unable to cope with this double life, Hirschfeld wrote his first publication in 1896, a pamphlet entitled Sappho and Socrates, on homosexual love arguing that homosexuality was a natural variation of human sexuality and should be decriminalised. 

The following year, on his 31st birthday, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK) with the primary aims of lobbying for the repeal of paragraph 175 and campaigning for social recognition of all LGBT men and women (although not then called LGBT). This was the world’s first Gay Rights campaigning organisation.

According to the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation, “Between 1899 and 1923, Hirschfeld and his staff compiled a 20,000-page anthology. The “Yearbooks For Sexual Intermediaries” were intended to show that between the “full man” and the “full woman” there are an infinite number of gradations and combinations. Hermaphrodites, transvestites, homosexuals are the necessary natural link between the two poles of man and woman. The homosexual is a kind of “third sex”. He founded the “Institute for Sexual Research” in 1919 in order to provide a solid framework for this research.    

That same year, Hirschfeld appeared in a 50 minute silent film about Homosexuality, – the first ever film to openly address the topic. The film “Different from the Others” was banned in 1920 and most copies were destroyed by Nazis in the 1930’s so only fragments remain but enough to understand just how ground breaking the film was.  In the short clip below Hirschfeld plays himself as a sexologist consulted by a gay client. 




Hirschfeld first came to my attention because of his work with Transsexualism which led to me featuring him in my Transgender Awareness Training Workshops. It was he who first coined the term Transvestite in 1910, and later Transsexual, although this latter term was not popular until the 1950's. Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science (Institut füer Sexualwissenschaft) was the world’s first gender identity clinic and his staff performed the first known transsexual surgeries, the most famous of whom was Danish born Einer Wegener who became Lili Elbe. You can find more about this in the article on my Gender Network site.

Unfortunately in the early 1930s the political climate in Germany was dramatically changing with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and Magnus Hirschfeld and his Institute for Sexual Science was becoming a primary target.  Hirschfeld activities as a gay rights campaigner had made him vulnerable to homophobic behaviour of the far right and he was violently attacked a number of times.  Hitler himself had described Hirschfeld as “the most dangerous Jew in Germany”  

When in May 1933 Police, German students and Hitler Youth began burning un German books, it was Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science that was the first target on 6th May, 4 days before the main book burning event on 10th May.  The image here, which is well known, is believed to be the burning of Hirschfeld’s Library and research, and in the middle of the fire the bust of Hirschfeld himself.

Hirschfeld himself was no longer in Germany at this time.  He had left in 1931 on a global speaking tour and never returned to Germany, He did return to Europe in 1932 and eventually settled in exile in France, first in Paris and later the Nice where he died on his 67th birthday on May 14th 1935 of a heart attack.

I will be writing later this month about both Lili Elbe and The Nazi persecution of LGBT people so don't forget to share this post with your friends and sign up to receive the posts in your email - see the sign up box at the top of the right hand column.  You can easily cancel your registration at anytime. 

The Business Case for Transgender Awareness Training

One of the arguments often put up for not undertaking Transgender Awareness Training is that there are too few trans people to justify the costs. The is a good argument but unfortunately, since the Equality Act 2010, it is not longer a valid justification.

The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public bodies to pay due regard to the need to

• Eliminate Discrimination, Harassment and Victimisation
• Advance Equality of Opportunity 
• Foster Good Relations

Its the phrase Due Regard that provides public bodies with the basis for the argument that the numbers involved does not justify the cost. All organisations do have to consider the size of the community with a particular protected characteristic and then make value judgements regarding the extent of efforts to comply with the duty.

However when it comes the the Trans community, the Equality Act has fundamentally changed the way we need to look at the size of communities when assessing the need for Transgender Awareness Training.

Across the UK we know that about 12,500 trans people have presented themselves at gender clinics and that the number is growing at a rate of about 11% pa. However that really is the tip of the iceberg. and the change in definition of the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment means that we now have to look beyond this small group.

The original definition of Gender Reassignment included anyone who was planning to undergo, was undergoing or has undergone a medically supervised process of gender reassignment. This restrictive definition meant that anyone not receiving medical treatment for their condition was not protected, even though practically no one would actually be able to determine who did and who did not quality without questioning them.

The Equality Act 2010 changed that definition to a Personal Process which, according to Equality and Human Rights Commission advice, includes anyone who has started cross dressing or has gone to a GP or counsellor for advice about. their condition.  More importantly the trans person needs only to have started the process to be protected under this characteristic.  So someone most people would define as a transvestite or cross dresser, who occasionally cross dresses in private, would still be protected against discrimination.

Why is this important?  Well first this increases the number of people protected by the Act to about 500,000.  Now imagine that a housing department or association sends an operative to a tenants house and when they arrive the tenant is cross dressed.  Because they are in their home, they may not have make up on or a wig or may even have a beard or stubble. - they may look like a man in a dress.

 If this trans person is then treated in a discriminatory way or comments are made that are interpreted as harassment, or the operative mentions this to neighbours who then harass the trans women - you have a claim on your hands which at best is going to be expensive in management time and reputation.  Transgender Awareness Training would most likely have prevented this problem. 

Of course often people don't discriminate directly against a trans person, its their children, partners, parents friends who get discriminated against or bullied. My partner, my children and step children have all had to face uncomfortable comments, bullying and harassment just because they are Associated with me, and they are protected under the Equality Act as if they had the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment themselves. 

But what if that tenant was not transgender - but were just dressed up for a party or had put on their wife's dressing gown to answer the door. Well if someone were to discriminate or harass them believing that they were trans, the Equality Act now provides that if someone is discriminated against because they are perceived to have a protected characteristic, they will be treated as if they have that protected characteristic.

Finally when some people realise that I am, trans, they don't get it. They see me as a "bloke in a dress" and the harassment or discrimination I receive is not because they see me as a trans woman but because they see ms as a gay man. If that happens I am still protected because I am protected in respect of my perceived sexual orientation.

What this all means of course is that when delivering Transgender Awareness Training we cannot completely separate Gender Reassignment and Sexual Orientation. Estimates suggest that about 6% of the population are Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual and when we add to this all the people who are perceived to be LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender), or are family or friends of people who are LGBT - well that's probably close to a quarter of the population.

With those numbers, any assessment of Due Regard means that it is an issue that cannot be ignored. Unfortunately there are some people who because of their extreme religious beliefs or because of their deep seated homophobic or transphobic views, feel that it is OK to discriminate against and harass LGBT people and because in the recent past their discrinatory behaviour and views were supported by legislation, Transgender Awareness Training is essential.

Over the past decade their has been a huge amount of legislation to not just protect Trans people from discrimination, but to encourage the public sector to actively engage with Trans people and create a more inclusive society. The problem is that while we may have changed the law, changing attitudes is a much longer and more difficult process, one that can only be achieved with effective levels of Transgender Awareness Training.

Why is LGBT History so Important?

February is LGBT History Month in the UK, and the 9th annual celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender history in the UK started by Sue Sanders in February 2005.  The theme this year is Music.

The inspiration for LGBT history Month came partly from its US equivalent in October each year, but mostly as a result of the work Sue had done through her Schools Out project to raise awareness of LGBT issues in schools and her campaigning for the abolition of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.

Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, passed in November 1988, stated that a local authority:

 "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

Whilst section 28 did not create a criminal offense and no one was ever prosecuted, what it did was to support the homophobic and transphobic attitudes in many schools, especially faith schools, and many of the more conservative local authorities.  As a result much of the limited support for LGBT projects was withdrawn and little or no education and support for LGBT pupils or children of LGBT parents was available for the next 15 years .  Of course this also meant that LGBT history was largely erased from education. 

The past 10 years since the abolition of Section 28 in 2003 has seen huge changes in equality law in respect of LGBT people, yet still today schools are reluctant to address the issues and sexual orientation and gender identity remain the second highest cause of bullying behind weight.  Worse is that schools have allowed homophobic comment to go unchallenged.  The fact that the expression “OMG! That is so gay” is considered by many to be not offensive is an example of how schools have failed to prevent bullying, harassment and victimisation on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

But even within institutions there is still a strong undercurrent of negative attitude founded mostly the strongly held homophobic and transphobic beliefs of major religions.  This year in the debate over same sex marriage, attempts were made by mostly Conservative Lords and Bishops to reintroduce regulation giving schools the right to opt out discussing same sex issues.
   
It is that institutional homophobia and transphobia that has been the primary cause, of persecution of LGBT people. I am now starting to create an LGBT History Section on my GenderNetwork Website where I hope to draw together the real history of LGBT people across the world. Some of what you read there will fascinate you, some may shock you and some may even make you angry.

The problem with all history is finding the truth. I recall attending a lecture, when I was studying for my MSc in Gender Research, on using autobiography for research. The lecturer started the session by saying:

“Let’s be clear from the start. All Autobiography is Fiction!”

She proceeded to demonstrate this statement by comparing a number of autobiographies and biographies and historical records. When people write their own history they tell us what they want us to remember. In the past most history was written by mostly male academics, clerics and government officials. Free speech is a relatively new right. Governments throughout history have controlled what is written; religious orders have destroyed records that challenge their beliefs; journalists have lied to create a great story; legends have been created by theatre, poetry and songs that stretch or even invent the truth.

Yet despite all attempts to demonise LGBT people, the truth is still there if we look hard enough. Sometimes we have to make assumptions; sometimes we have to make interpretations based on the evidence; but I hope at least to challenge your thinking, open your minds to some new ideas, throw a new light on what you thought happened in the past and take you on a fascinating journey into a world that is quite literally “Hidden in Plain Sight”.

February is just three weeks away, and a great opportunity for all organisations, not just public sector, to promote a positive attitude to LGBT Issues. Why not organise a LGBT in music event, or an exhibition of local LGBT history, or run some LGBT, Sexual Orientation or Transgender Awareness Training, or sponsor or support a local LGBT support group, or best of all, do something to promote LGBT issues in your local schools.

There are loads of great ideas and resources on the LGBT History Month site.  Remember that the theme this year is Music and there are a huge number of musicians who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender so there is bags of scope for finding a project that you could organise or support.  And if you need a speaker for your event don't hesitate to contact me, Rikki Arundel 

Chelsea Manning - A Brave Heroine

What an interesting day. 

Bradley Manning, a 23 year old US army private,  having just been sentenced to 35 years for leaking 700,000 military documents to WikiLeaks, promptly announces that she is female and now wishes to be known as Chelsea, specifically requesting that in future she is referred to by female pronouns.



This is how the Washington Times reported that information

“I am Chelsea Manning. I am female,” he wrote. “Given the way I feel and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.

 “I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun,” he said. “I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back.”

To be fair it was not just the Washington Times - the BBC got it wrong as did most of the US media reports I have read.

Personally I was a little surprised at the news - I know how badly US prisons have treated trans people in the past and I wondered how she was going to cope. Within hours Department of Defense spokeswoman Catherine T. Wilkinson told ABC News that "there is no mechanism in place for the U.S. military to provide hormone therapy or gender-reassignment surgery for inmates."

So she will serve her sentence in Fort Leavenworth, an all male military prison with a decidedly poor reputation for their treatment of gay and trans prisoners. I have delivered Transgender Awareness Training in a number of UK prisons and I know that trans people frequently get raped.

Here in the UK however we do provide access to gender reassignment treatment. Trans people are allowed to wear female clothing while in a male prison, they can have hormone treatment and even gender reassignment surgery. If they qualify for a Gender Recognition Certificate - then they will be transferred to a female prison, no matter what the crime.  This was established in a House of Lords decision a few years ago.

The US had no such policies - that is until last week. In reading the latest reports a came across this really interesting article in the Atlantic.  Although first passed by congress in 2003 the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) was enforced for the first time week, requiring every state in the US to demonstrate compliance with the new set of federal regulations.

My research indicated that trans prisoners have a very high suicide rate, and that at least a third were subjected to sexual violence.  Most trans people have needed to adopt one of two strategies to avoid being regularly gang raped. Strategy one is to "get married" to a prison godfather. That affords them full protection in exchange for them undertaking their duties as a wife.
Strategy two is prostitution - usually with the same prison godfather now as their pimp allowing both to become prison rich.

That all said I was surprised to learn from a former prison inmate that not all gay and trans prisoners are sexually assaulted. Apparently a small and very effeminate gay man was assaulted on one occasion by a huge beast of a man. A day later the beast of a man had a 10 gallon container of boiling fat poured over his head and was never seen again.  The gay man was never assaulted again - by anyone.

But this may all be a thing of the past.  The new regulations mean that every case now has to be considered on its own merits and a decision made on the safest way for someone to be incarcerated. The fact that Chelsea still has a male body will not exclude her from that treatment - which will be about time.

The most shocking thing I read about Chelsea manning is the way she was treated before the trial.  Over 1000 days in prison, and a substantial amount of that time in solitary confinement. This report in the Daily Beast makes depressing reading. In Quantico, Virginia she was held for nine months in solitary, and unheard of length of time, deprived of sleep and clothing and ritually humiliated on the grounds that she was a suicide risk.

Chelsea leaked the documents to WikiLeaks because she was uncomfortable with the way she saw the US army treating people in Iraq and Afghanistan.  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange believes that it was Chelsea Mannings leaked reports and videos more than anything else that brought and end to the war in Iraq - which is why she is seen by so many as a hero.  Ironically, once arrested she was then subjected to the very same type of treatment that had prompted her actions in the first place. 

I have been quite shocked by what I have read today. Chelsea joined the army to try to suppress her female gender identity.  It didn't work - and so many of us have tried that approach and failed. It also seems that the announcement today was not much of a surprise.  Chelsea had told her bosses in 2010 but was viewed as gay then at a time when she was not permitted to be openly gay.

I am pretty sure that this is not going to go away. There are countless advocacy groups with a strong interest in keeping this alive whether it is to promote trans and gay rights or human rights.  I suspect that we will never forget Chelsea Manning, a brave young soldier who took on the might of the US military - and despite everything is still fighting.

The Human Rights Approach to Life – Treat Everyone with Dignity and Respect

I am a great supporter of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) because it has been one of the main drivers behind the transformational changes in equality law over the past decade. Why this government and some of our media, want to replace it is a bit of a mystery bearing in mind it was the British in 1949/50 who were the main architects of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

The role of the ECHR is to provide a final court of appeal to all citizens of Europe if they believe that basic human rights are being violated by the state. In the UK however since the Human Rights Act 1998, most human rights issues are now dealt with in the UK courts with only about 10 cases each year actually being heard in Strasbourg. 

Whilst Human Rights law itself is quite complex and applies only to the way the state treats its citizens, the basic principle is simple and one which we should all try to live by in all our dealings with other people.  If we could, I believe that thousands of pages of legislation could be dispensed with. 

Treat Everyone with Dignity and Respect

That's it. Simple - but is it?  When I ask people on my workshops if they could live by this basic principle most immediately say yes... 

Until I emphasise the important word in that statement.  Everyone – murders, drug dealers, paedophiles, sex offenders, rapists, terrorists... 

“Ah – everyone except... ” I hear people say.  But we can’t do that. The principle of Human Rights has to apply everyone.

Who gets to decide on the exceptions? If the issue is a matter of national security, do we give someone the right to withdraw human rights from people in secret?  There can be no exceptions. 

After I changed gender I had a few minor problems with children in the area bringing their friends to “see the local trannie”.  And if I was nowhere to be seen they would shout, knock on the door, or throw stones to get my attention.  I put up with this for a few years and then in October 2008 things took a turn for the worse. 

First thing I noticed was a hole in a window where a stone had been thrown too hard. I ignored it, until the next week when another window was broken, so I called the police and reported this as a hate crime. Nothing was done and the next week things got even worse.

I thought at first it was a hail storm, till I opened the French windows and realised that a gang of about 20 kids were all throwing stones over my back fence.  And that was just the start.  Every night between 5 and 20 kids aged about 12 to 15 attacked my house from the rear and the front throwing stones, mud and abuse before disappearing into the dark back ally’s.

I called 999 no fewer than 11 times in the next two weeks and lived in constant stress.  All the windows, including the French windows were broken and I had had to board them up to prevent further damage.  Police were around my house every night in cars, on bikes and on foot, but the kids still evaded them. 

I had no idea who they were, because many of them were wearing hoodies and balaclavas to avoid being recognised.  I was terrified to leave the house at night in case they were able to get into my house and spray paint the interior, something I knew had been done to other gay and trans people in the city. 

Finally it reached a crescendo. They were riding past the front of my house on bikes hurling mud at the walls and windows and I lost it.  I grabbed a retractable washing line prop and went out to confront them – I was ready to take their heads off with heavy aluminium pole.

“Come on you little Bas****s,” I shouted.  All thought of treating them with dignity and respect was gone.  One young lad stood there, mud in hand.  “Come on then”, I yelled, then added “Why are you doing this to me?”

 “Well, are you a man or a woman?” came the reply.

I threw away my weapon and started to answer his question.  He dropped the mud he was holding and came forward and before I knew it he was joined by others, all firing questions as me.

Five minutes later I found myself on the green outside my house delivering a transgender awareness workshop to about 20 young people and as they removed their balaclavas I know it was all over. 

I spent about 10 minutes talking to them before the police arrived and they dispersed but I never had another problem after that.

It was over because I did "Treat Everyone with Dignity and Respect".

If I had hit one of them with that pole I would have been arrested and the problem with have escalated, with parents adding to the problem. 

Treating people with dignity and respect does not mean that we do not put people in prison or punish them for crimes or deport them to their country of origin; it means that when we do those things, we do it with dignity and respect, even when they have failed to treat others that way.

If you take this approach in all your dealings with people, especially colleagues at work, customers and service users, even our neighbors, you will never fall foul of equalities law and the world around us will be a much nicer place. 

How Do You Deal With Hidden Prejudice?

“How do you cope with it?” said my colleague leaning forward so as keep his voice down. 

“Cope with what? I said.

“All the people staring at you, talking about you, sniggering... ?”

“Where?” I said, turning in my seat to survey the people sitting around in the hotel lounge, apparently getting on with their own meetings.

“Oh, they’ve stopped now you’ve looked,” replied my colleague.

“Who was making comments?” I asked, raising my voice a little.

“Leave it” he said quickly raising his hand a little, obviously mortified by the thought that I might make a scene and further embarrass him.

I relaxed.  “I cope with it because I don’t see it,” I said.  “People do it behind my back – they hide their prejudice.”

That was a real incident 10 years ago when I first changed my gender and started on my journey to change attitudes by delivering Transgender Awareness Training. Since then the law in the UK has changed beyond recognition and most public sector organisations have in place equality policies to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and protected from discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

People have learned over the past decade not to be seen to discriminate and rightly they will be disciplined if they behave inappropriately.  Unfortunately changing the law does not change attitudes and beliefs.  That is much more difficult and the challenge organisations face today is the unconscious and hidden bias and prejudice that is impacting the way people are treated every day.

My experience over the past decade has confirmed to me that the people hold prejudices mostly through ignorance. Many have never met and spoken to anyone who is trans or gay, and they have been hugely influenced by homophobic and transphobic comments from friends, family and the media.  They see and hear trans and gay people and their friends being humiliated and ridiculed, often behind their backs, and feel bullied into silence.

My voice is still very masculine so I always have challenges on the phone, but I also have problems day to day.  A few weeks ago I attended a workshop and had made a point of dressing in a way that was unmistakeably female.  Yet despite that the taxi driver referred to me as “sir”, as did the clerk at the rail information desk.

My partner also has a bad time. She sees people laughing behind my back; she sees staff in shops and offices making faces at each other when they hear my voice. A friend had to endure a transphobic rant from a cashier in a store who felt that I should not be allowed to use female changing cubicles and female toilets. She lost her job the following day.

Prejudice is often very subtle. I see people actively avoid me or not make eye contact, or make aside comments to a colleague and laugh. Often I find I am not given the same level of customer service, even refused service on the phone because my voice did not match the gender on my customer record.

And it’s not just me; often my friends and family find themselves being subtly treated with prejudice simply because they are with me.

I know some people talk about me behind my back, refer to me a “he” instead of “she”, point and snigger when I pass but I seldom see or hear any of it.  My friends, family and acquaintances do. Where people hide their deep prejudice from me, they openly show them to people who know me, even confronting them for being with me.

What they don’t understand is that my friends, family and acquaintances are just as hurt and upset by their behaviour and comments as I would be if they didn’t hide it from me.  And this could also be happening every day in your organisation.

Sometimes when people are the victims of this subtle discrimination and prejudice they complain – mostly we don’t.  We just don’t go back, and we tell our friends about it.

And remember that it is the organisation that gets a bad name for homophobic and transphobic behaviour, not the individual members of staff.

The solution is to make sure that everyone receives transgender awareness training – and as far as possible training delivered by people who have the protected characteristic being addressed. I have seen some amazingly entertaining trainers who are trans, gay, have cerebral palsy, are burns victims etc.

Just talking about prejudice is not enough – we have to confront our hidden prejudices in order to address them.