Transforming Attitudes About Transgender Employee Rights

Abstract

Transgender employees may suffer from discrimination due to transphobia. This article evaluates a pedagogical intervention designed to reduce the transphobia of North American undergraduate business students. Participants were enrolled in an organizational behavior course. They resolved a simulated dispute between coworkers over accommodating the bathroom choices of a transgender employee. Answers were classified as demonstrating inclusion, compliance, or hostility with the inclusive response being the establishment of gender-neutral restrooms and the hostile response being refusal to accept the transgender employee's bathroom choice. In the first year, 194 students completed the exercise with no advance preparation, while in the second year, 221 students performed the same task after reading a brief article about transgender employees. Results suggest that the intervention was effective as the inclusive response was most popular in the second year even though it had been least popular in the first year. Complete success was not attained, as one sixth of the students in the second year chose hostile responses. Implications for research, teaching, and practice are discussed.

When are trans women treated worse than trans men?

“…is less effective than humanizing material that features conversations with transgender individuals. However, Rudin et al (2016) found the assigned reading to be substantially more effective in reducing discrimination than providing no preparation at all to students. The case was entitled "I'm not sharing a bathroom with 'it'" and can be found in its entirety in Appendix.…”

Bigenderism at work? Organizational responses to trans men and trans women employees

“…Tompkins et al (2015) determine that educational material, which is how the assigned reading would be categorized, is less effective than humanizing material that features conversations with transgender individuals. However, Rudin et al (2016) found the assigned reading to be substantially more effective in reducing transphobia than providing no preparation at all to students.…”

Busting the Gender Binary: Activities for Teaching Transgender Issues in Management Education

“…Building understanding and awareness about the differences between these experiences is crucial to increasing students' competencies in addressing the issues transgender people face. As Rudin et al (2015) found, even tentatively addressing these issues through a short but topical case study increased students' acceptance of and knowledge about transgender people. Additionally, as educators taught about transgender experiences repeatedly, their confidence in teaching about transgender experiences increased, and their students showed more change (Rudin et al, 2015).…”

“…Finally, we provide a collection of mini case studies similar to those in the Rudin et al (2015) case study. Ours differ in the content and the number of cases, and in the inclusion of suggested responses from transgender people (see Appendix B).…”