UK: Trans city worker says big business trying hard to be inclusive
Big businesses are trying to welcome trans employees, according to trans building consultant Antonia Belcher.
Small businesses, though, are “a different animal”, she said, as they do not have the funding to help people transition.
Ms Belcher, who transitioned 14 years ago, said she had thought she was going to be told to leave the business.
However when she told her employers they were fine with it.
She did not tell her colleagues though and when she arrived after her transition, “they probably all went to the pub and had a snigger but other than that it was business as usual.”
She made the comments at an event which aimed to promote diversity in the City of London, the heart of the UK’s finance industry.
Around 90% of delegates at the event said that their boss would accept if an employee wanted to change their gender.
Despite this seemingly good news, Ms Belcher said that she had not met another male to female trans person in her industry.
“In the trans community there are lots of horror stories and we don’t see the good stories as lots of trans people don’t let people know that they are trans.”
BBC presenter Evan Davis told PinkNews that, in the media, trans people were “vastly less visible” than gay people.
He continued though that “acceptance of trans people has reached a tipping point in the last twenty years” and that everyone at the BBC would be “very keen” to make sure being trans was not a problem in the workplace.
