Help! Employee is Transitioning!

You can’t do anything until senior executive actually ‘calls and expresses concerns’. How did YOU manage to gain their respect?
I’m GC but in this situation they could dislike an employee for any number of reasons and to not have a stance is a step backward.

“Due to the sensitive nature of this issue and our commitments both to respecting our clients’ priorities and the company’s responsibilities as an employer, I will need you as HR to take the lead in resolving this”. Then CC in the couple of more senior people who will be pissed off if you lose the client and let HR and bosses battle out the best approach.. If you get asked or pressed to take charge, say “I’m afraid this is outside the scope of my expertise”
This is good advice.

SoManyQuestionsHere
Yes, I agree you have been left without support. The legal exposure you mention is probably disproportionately tipped towards you on purpose.
But essentially what you've said is that so far this chap hasn't expressed political views or indulged in an inappropriate behaviour. He's just very gender non-conforming. So my advice to do absolutely nothing is genuine.
When you get bullied for failing to bully him out of his role, then you need to defend yourself. And the reply you received could end up being useful.

In actual reality, the skirt and/or eyeliner results in "senior client executive calling me and expressing concerns". At which point, it turns into my primary problem to try and strike the right balance between "lay off the eyeliner" and "get lost, client, I'll take a hit of a few 100k in exchange for my people being able to express themselves at work!"

Has this happened?

I of course don't know your line of work. But I can't imagine any work environment where a client would - as a typical situation & not an odd individual - have such concerns. Why would they?

I'm not being snarky, honest, I don't get the issues, even with your explanations.

However I'm happy to take your word for it that it is something you face in your work environment.

What would you do if your clients refuse or object to dealing with people of race, or religion, or anything else? If a male client refuses to see a female employee, would you shun the female employee? You can replace female employee with black employee, Muslim employee, Jewish employee, disabled employee, non binary employee for the same example. Where do you draw the line, do you side with the client or your employee?

That was to suggestions

You should be able to refer yourself to inclusiveness and diversity training, perhaps that would help?

Not comparable at all.

@Ionlydomassiveones to be honest at this point I relate gender identities to freckles. Some people have them, some people don’t. though unlike most people I know with freckles, those that do have gender identities like it to be the first thing you notice about them. Not quite sure how that stands up legally though

How about you imagine how you would deal with a scenario where your client had a prejudice against an ethnic minority, or a homosexual employee, or a Sikh/Muslim/Jewish/Christian employee.

Now just do what you would do in that scenario, ok?

If that is beyond you perhaps you shouldn't be in your particular role?

I don't know how it works, but can your more conservative clients work with someone else, and other clients work with Kimye? Presumably different clients will "click" more with different employees?

@shedbuilder you might be fine with being chased out of toilets but plenty of other mis-sexed women aren't. Especially those who have urgent need because of inflammatory bowel disease or who need to deal with periods. These people should not face harassment.

In actual reality, the skirt and/or eyeliner results in "senior client executive calling me and expressing concerns". At which point, it turns into my primary problem to try and strike the right balance between "lay off the eyeliner" and "get lost, client, I'll take a hit of a few 100k in exchange for my people being able to express themselves at work!"

That's what I was getting at. Realistically you can't prevent this person (or any other employee) possibly alienating clients. You'd have to have pretty rigid (yet legally compliant) policies in place to even challenge them.

Well in that case OP can freely discriminate against the non binary employee.

My employee is, apparently, non-binary and is looking to make some bold, public moves!

It appears that the issue is one of palatability no? Hence the comment about Jeremy Kyle.

If an employee's personal style loses a firm clients, is that grounds for the employer to take some action?
I'd suggest most employers would like to believe that is the case but without (for example) a clear dress policy or appearance policy and clear breaches of set policy, I don't know how any action could be taken.
If this individual showed up to work with a full-face tattoo, as an extreme example, sacking them or asking them to work in a role that wasn't client-facing might seem obvious, but if there was no "no facial tattoos" policy then ultimately the company is relying on tribunals seeing their actions as reasonable.
Which they might do in the case of a full facial tattoo but might not in the case of blue hair and dangly earrings.

To be honest, hiring women has probably cost employers clients, hiring black people has probably cost employers clients, etc. To what extent a client's preferences in terms of who they interact with can be indulged depends on the impact on the employee and their rights. Some examples could include the rights of cabin crew to wear suitable uniform instead of dressing to impress male business travellers. Did airlines lose certain passengers when they allowed female cabin crew to wear trousers and flats? Almost certainly.

I'd suggest doing nothing, at all. If an issue of discrimination comes up, deal with it. What is more worrying is if it becomes apparent that this person is costing your business money, you might well get pressured to pressure them in turn to leave. That's when you're going to need advice.

Can you not just discuss it with your staff member, and see what challenges may arise? I honestly cannot see many, barring the hotel room sharing, which is poor practice regardless & anyway hardly a daily activity.

As any issues arise, you escalate them to your managers for guidance / support.

I don't know why it's all so problematic for you and why 'we trust you' isn't sufficient, at this stage.

Absolutely nothing has gotten through

I was only doing it for the lurkers, to be honest.

It is binding,

No, the Jaguar Land Rover employment tribunal was not binding on any other court's interpretation of the status of non binary gender identity in the Equality Act. I'll leave it there, I'm sure people can make up their own minds.