Listen carefully: transgender voices in the workplace

T. Alexandra Beauregard, L. Arevshatian, Jonathan E. Booth and S. Whittle

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We find that only 17% of FTSE 100 company websites refer directly to transgender (‘trans’) individuals, illustrating the extent to which trans voices are unheard in the workplace. We propose that these voices are missing for a number of reasons: voluntary silence to protect oneself from adverse circumstances; the subsumption of trans voices within the larger ‘LGBT’ community; assimilation, wherein many trans voices become affiliated with those of their post-transition gender; multiple trans voices arising from diversity within the transgender community; and limited access to voice mechanisms for transgender employees. We identify the negative implications of being unheard for individual trans employees, for organizational outcomes, and for business and management scholarship, and propose ways in which organizations can listen more carefully to trans voices. Finally, we introduce an agenda for future research that tests the applicability of the theoretical framework of invisible stigma disclosure to transgender individuals, and calls for new theoretical and empirical developments to identify HRM challenges and best practices for respecting trans employees and their choices to remain silent or be heard.

Keywords: transgender; LGBT; voice; silence; diversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 J50 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-09-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in International Journal of Human Resource Management, 26, September, 2016, 29(5), pp. 857-884. ISSN: 0958-5192

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:67793

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