For Transgender Awareness Week, we wanted to publish a short guide for employers, HR professionals and managers to help them understand how to support and manage transgender job applicants and employees.
Most employers naturally want to support all their staff, whatever their personal circumstances, but transgender people are also specifically protected from discrimination based on their gender reassignment. The protection applies from the point at which they propose to undergo the process of transitioning and continues during and following that process.
We find that many employers do not understand their obligations to transgender employees and risk being wrong-footed or breaching those obligations. This article therefore sets out five key tips to provide some clarity.
Transgender individuals are not obliged to disclose their gender or the fact of their transition and must not be pressured to do so. Well-meaning managers might encounter an applicant/employee whose physical characteristics, dress or presentation indicates that they may be transgender and the manager may be tempted to prompt them to disclose it. This should be avoided.
Transgender people face many challenges within society and the decision to disclose one’s transition in any context can be daunting. If someone expresses a wish to transition socially* at work, managers or HR should consult with them as to who they want to know about it, when and in what order. It can be helpful to put together an agreed timeline to set out what steps will be taken and when. In any event, the wishes of the transgender employee must be paramount.
* “social transition” is the process of changing how one’s gender identity is expressed to others e.g., changing name, pronouns, clothing and hairstyle. In short, the non-medical part of transitioning.
The decision to transition, whether socially, medically or both, is a very personal one, and the fact that someone is taking this step is likely to be sensitive personal data and should be treated confidentially. The same is true of any documentation of steps taken to facilitate social transition at work.
When meeting with an employee to discuss their transition and plan any steps to support and facilitate it, access to minutes or notes of those meetings should be controlled; possibly only one manager or HR should have that access (at least at first).
Many transgender individuals will not have a gender recognition certificate. For those that do, disclosing this fact without their consent is a criminal offence (subject to limited legal exceptions).
If an employee is ready to share their transition with the wider workforce, in many (although not all) cases they will wish to be referred to by a new name or different pronouns. Intentionally referring to a transgender person using their former pronouns (“misgendering”) or name (“deadnaming”) is likely to amount to unlawful harassment. Employers should set clear expectations with staff that a transgender colleague should be referred to in the way that they wish.
This also means updating systems and documents, including payslips, contracts, email addresses and signatures, Teams/Slack/Google Chat IDs, ID badges, security passes and any other ID details.
Naturally, mistakes will happen, and most transgender individuals will not take exception to an honest and isolated mistake. If the wrong name or pronoun is used, it’s usually best to simply correct the mistake and apologise promptly, then move on. Resist the urge to make too much out of an incident like this, as over-apologising or otherwise dramatising a one-off error can be just as unpleasant for the transgender individual as the mistake itself.
Absence from work due to gender reassignment must be handled no less favourably than absence for sickness or injury. Absence of this kind must also be treated no less favourably than other forms of absence, unless it is reasonable to do so.
Medical transition can be a lengthy and complex process, and some transgender people will not undergo surgical or other medical treatment as part of their transition. However, when time off is needed to attend a gender clinic, undergo (or recover from) surgery, or because of ill health caused by other treatment (e.g., side-effects of hormone therapy), transgender employees should be given the same support and paid leave that their cisgender (non-trans) colleagues would receive if they were unwell.
Employers should avoid the (misguided) assumption that care of this kind amounts to elective treatment (akin to cosmetic surgery) and is therefore lower priority. Differentiating in this way, for example by requiring a transgender employee to use annual leave to attend a gender clinic appointment, is likely to be unlawful.
It is best practice to record absence due to gender reassignment separately to other types of absence (whilst maintaining confidentiality) and avoid using it in attendance monitoring or redundancy procedures.
Toilets, washrooms and changing facilities in the workplace are dealt with the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 (Regulations), under which separate facilities must be provided for men and women, unless they are found in a lockable room intended to be used by only one person at a time. The Regulations pre-date most law dealing with transgender people and therefore do not say which facilities they should use.
In recent years, government guidance stated that transgender employees should be permitted to use sex-segregated facilities in accordance with their acquired gender, not their gender as assigned at birth. In April 2025 the Supreme Court ruled on the meaning of “sex” and “women” for the purposes of the Equality Act (but not the Regulations). Shortly after, the EHRC issued guidance that transgender men should not be allowed to use the men’s toilets and transgender women should not be allowed to use the women’s toilets (both at work and otherwise). However, the guidance also said that in some (undefined) circumstances employers can prevent transgender men from using the women’s toilets and transgender women from using the men’s toilets. More recently, that guidance has been withdrawn.
The legal position remains unclear, with the result that employers face the risk of claims of gender reassignment discrimination from transgender employees who are prevented from using their preferred facilities, and of sex discrimination from any cisgender employees who may object to sharing facilities with transgender colleagues. Employers who wish to be an ally to their transgender staff whilst also not discriminating against their cisgender staff (including those with “gender critical” views who are also protected from discrimination on that basis) face difficulties balancing these incentives and the associated risks.
The case law in this area shows that the required balancing act can be a difficult one to get right and the answer will depend on the facts of each situation, so we haven’t answered it in this high-level guidance, other than to recommend taking specialist legal advice as soon as possible. Clearly, this ambiguity is unsatisfactory for businesses, and it is to be hoped that Parliament intervenes to clarify matters.
We hope that these tips are helpful. If you are an employer with a transitioning employee seeking guidance on how best to support them, or a transgender employee who wants to understand more about your rights, please contact one of our employment team.
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