Transgender Guidance (April 2025)

7. Employment

It can be extremely difficult step for someone to approach their manager to tell them that they are planning to transition. Often the person does not know what the manager’s response will be or how the news will be received generally at work.

Managers should follow the principles below to support individuals:

• Listen, show support, discuss levels of confidentiality, agree to seek advice and agree to work in partnership. The process should be led by the employee as much as possible.
• Take advice from the Human Resources (HR), Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing (OH, S & W) and Learning & Development (L&D) teams, as appropriate.
• Understand that employees have a range of experiences or objectives. Some people prefer as few people as possible to know about their transition and decide to discuss this only with their manager but require no further support; some employees ma be planning a medical intervention or may prefer transition that does not involve medical intervention or surgery. The key thing is that managers need to adopt an approach that meets the needs of the individual employee.
• Agree with the employee what steps need to be taken before, during and after their transition. Some people refer to this as developing an agreement or an action plan.
• A series of review meetings should be scheduled between the employee and the manager, at an agreed frequency as part of any agreement or action plan, and at any significant stage of the process (e.g., fortnightly/monthly).
• The plan should be updated and developed, not fixed.
• There should be an agreement about where the plan or any meeting notes are kept and who has access.

A trusting and open relationship between a trans employee and the manager is important. This should involve joint problem solving (such as anticipating and planning for any concerns), respecting confidentiality, being reliable (doing what you say you are going to do) and developing empathy and understanding. A suggested template of recording discussions between the employee and the manager is in Appendix 3.