Transforming organizations: experiences of leaders and transgender professionals in the workplace

Abstract

Brazil is ranked first among the world's deadliest countries for trans people. If one is to assume work as one form of demarginalizing trans people in the country, this qualitative, exploratory, phenomenological research aims at understanding how trans professionals and leaders perceive the preparedness of organizations and their leadership in dealing with the presence of trans professionals in organizations. Having as theoretical background diversity management, publications about trans people in the workplace, gender and standpoint theory, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted, nine of them with trans professionals and six of them with leaders and people management professionals. Results highlight the lack of preparedness in leaders and organizations when dealing with the presence of trans professionals in organizations and also that trans professionals play the part of the often sole gender educator in organizational contexts. Ways of improving such reality include, but are not restricted to, enabling speaking and listening spaces for employees in organizations and workgroups, easing the burden on trans professionals of being the sole gender educators in their workplaces and legitimizing the trans existence in the organizational culture through diversity, equality and inclusion values.