Harvard Business Review published this article about how workplaces can better apply anti-discrimination policies for trans and gender-non-conforming individuals. I tried searching for it and I don't think it has come up here yet.
hbr.org/2020/11/transgender-gender-fluid-nonbinary-and-gender-nonconforming-employees-deserve-better-policies?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
I think the article shows why and how gender id-related issues are arising in the workplace through ‘champions’ of diversity. Her analysis and recommendations for the workplace are blind to any conflict with other protected characteristics. The time and resource-pressed manager sees an easy set of steps, but zero acknowledgment of conflicts or politics. Whether a manager is well-meaning or trying to score diversity brownie points, the decisions get made with incomplete information, and gender identity ideology becomes more entrenched in default ways of thinking and working.
For example, the article recommends:
• “Reducing the amount of gender information collected unless absolutely necessary”. With this it fails to recognize that collecting information about “gender” (which to the average reader, is the same thing as sex) is important for upholding anti-discrimination against women. The message for the manager is that they can make their workplace more equitable by reducing the collection of data on sex.
• “Providing opportunities for individual self-identification beyond the binary “man” and “woman” – implying that that “man” and “woman” are self-identified categories – subtly legitimizing the idea that physical reality is irrelevant. The well-meaning manager has no reason to question this, because nowhere is it presented as the contested, ideological perspective that it is.
• “Building gender-inclusive facilities, like bathrooms and locker rooms” – again, failing to consider that this kind of advice relates to decisions which require resource trade-offs in practice. The well-meaning manager can read this and think, “Great, I’ll increase the equity of my workplace by making the existing locker room ‘gender neutral”. No consideration of how this might affect the existing arrangements for men and women (or for staff who use disabled facilities), because these impacts are completely omitted from discussion.
The author is presented as some kind of gender diversity expert. If she is well-meaning, then she seems naive for an ‘expert’ (because many of the recommendations will surely lead to conflict). The other possibility is that she is aware of the various debates, but chose not to mention them.
Interested to hear any thoughts!