Transgenders and Sexual Harassment at Work

 

Transgenders and Sexual Harassment at Work



Transgender people are emerging from the margins to fight for an equal place in society. This new transparency is improving the lives of a long misunderstood minority and beginning to yield new policies, as trans activists and their supporters push for changes in schools, hospitals, workplaces, prisons, and the military.

Acceptance and awareness of transgender issues is on the rise among both the general population and the business world. Still, a number of troubling transgender issues in the workplace remain. Transgender workers face scattershot legal protections, numerous obstacles in workplace cultures, and high levels of harassment, including sexual harassment. The key to trans friendly workplaces lies in better understanding their unique challenges, and adjusting practices and policies to their varied needs. Sexual harassment of transgenders at workplace is a serious issue which needs to be addressed.

While some trans friendly workplaces exist, tragically, transgender employees still frequently experience targeted harassment and discrimination in the workplace.

This harassment and mistreatment can manifest in a number of ways—according to a survey respondents noted the following rates of mistreatment:

·       50 percent reported being sexually harassed by co-workers

·       41 percent said they’d been asked inappropriate questions about their transgender or surgical status

·       7 percent reported experiencing physical violence

·       6 percent being sexually assaulted

Now, as the name suggests, Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, is gender specific and is only for the protection of women in workplace. However, it fails to take into consideration that men and transgenders can be victims of workplace sexual harassment too. To talk of transgenders in particular, this community is a sexual minority and is more prone to such assault and harassment than men, due to their gender and more than women due to the lack of laws protecting them.

With the legal recognition of the third gender and the enactment of Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, transgenders now have the freedom to work anywhere without any discrimination under the law. Despite of this, transgenders are still continued to be subjected to sexual harassment at workplace.

The lack of gender neutrality in the POSH Act has been brought up many times. Each person is entitled to right to life and right to live with dignity, and as such statutes that punish sexual offences cannot selectively protect one person. The act of sexual harassment is a violation of a person’s human rights and well as the fundamental right to a dignified life. And as such, this issue must be included in the act.

At Counsel Quest, we work on thr belief that every personnel in any walk of life and any level in any organisation has the right to be free from sexual harassment and discrimination, irrespective of their gender.

Our mission is to create and spread awareness about the need for gender-sensitive workplaces, and promote a culture of fairness, respect and opportunity for one and all.

To know more, connect with Counsel Quest today!

 


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