Ecstatic
07-29-2005, 03:38 PM
Great news reported in the Boston Globe, Friday, July 29 regarding the first of the big six defense firms to enhance transgender and transsexual worker policy! Here's the full story:
Firm offers transgender protections
Diversity policy also expanded to cover transsexual workers
By Diane E. Lewis, Globe Staff | July 29, 2005
Raytheon Co. last week expanded its equal opportunity employment policy to include transgender and transsexual workers, becoming the first of the six big defense firms to do so.
Hayward L. Bell, chief diversity officer at the Waltham firm, said the company has also given out information kits on gender identity and expression to managers and human resource professionals ''to ensure they are more knowledgeable and better able to support Raytheon employees."
''This will allow people to be who they are, and not have to hide it," said Bell. ''It's also our way of saying that we recognize that these differences exist, and we are looking for your talent and what you can contribute."
The company, which employs 80,000 worldwide, said a previous policy did not formally include transgender or transsexual individuals, but focused instead on sexual orientation.
Currently, 71 of the Fortune 500 firms include gender identity and expression in their policies.
Of those, 40 have expanded their policies since January 2004, including Ford Motor Co., Pepsi Co., Wells Fargo, and Framingham-based Staples Inc., the only other Massachusetts company on the Fortune 500 list. It changed its policy in May, according to the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., a national support group for gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender people.
A spokesman for Staples yesterday declined to comment on the company's policy.
The support group, which announced Raytheon's decision yesterday, gave the firm a 100 percent rating on its Corporate Equality Index. The index rates US firms with at least 500 employees on the treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workers and investors based on information on domestic benefits, corporate policies, diversity training, and affinity groups.
Specialists said yesterday that some companies are reluctant to expand their policies because of confusion over the various definitions for different forms of sexuality, noting that many employers assume that sexual orientation will cover all groups when it refers only to relationships and attraction.
By contrast, gender expression and identity describe how people feel or express themselves.
''The expansion of gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender rights has been incremental," said Kitty Krupat, associate director of worker education at the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York. ''The recognition of the varieties of sexual identity has been slow in coming. People tend to think, well, you're gay, you're gay. For them, there is nothing in between and little variety within these categories."
At Raytheon, the push to include gender identity and expression in a company-wide policy began about five years ago with Amanda Simpson, a chief engineer and test pilot at Raytheon's Missile Systems Co., which employs 12,000 in Tucson. Simpson, 44, underwent a sex-change operation and became a woman about 6 1/2 years ago. She said in a phone interview that after her operation, she was surprised to learn the firm's policy did not include transgender or transsexual workers or people who either identify with the opposite sex, express their gender differently, or have had a medical and surgical sex change.
Simpson said about 18 other Raytheon employees are openly transsexual or transgender.
She said that in the past, US workers seeking to change their gender or form of expression quit their jobs and found new ones to avoid harassment.
''That's not the road I chose," Simpson said. ''The company offered to transfer me. It had supported other people in that way before, but I said, 'I like where I am, and I like the people I work with.' "
She said the decision to expand the policy took on new life after Bell's appointment in January.
''It might be that the out-going diversity person told him the policy needed to be changed and Bell made it a priority," Simpson said. ''That says a lot for Raytheon. It says it really embraces diversity."
Jeremy Bishop, acting director of Pride at Work, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, said more companies are starting to rethink their policies.
''More people are transitioning on the job, and they are more open about it," he said. ''There are also serious discrimination issues and companies are waking up to that . . . Some of it has to do with bathroom issues, people not feeling safe because of their identity. So we have been pushing for gender-neutral bathrooms . . . and we've been pushing companies to expand their policies."
Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com.
Firm offers transgender protections
Diversity policy also expanded to cover transsexual workers
By Diane E. Lewis, Globe Staff | July 29, 2005
Raytheon Co. last week expanded its equal opportunity employment policy to include transgender and transsexual workers, becoming the first of the six big defense firms to do so.
Hayward L. Bell, chief diversity officer at the Waltham firm, said the company has also given out information kits on gender identity and expression to managers and human resource professionals ''to ensure they are more knowledgeable and better able to support Raytheon employees."
''This will allow people to be who they are, and not have to hide it," said Bell. ''It's also our way of saying that we recognize that these differences exist, and we are looking for your talent and what you can contribute."
The company, which employs 80,000 worldwide, said a previous policy did not formally include transgender or transsexual individuals, but focused instead on sexual orientation.
Currently, 71 of the Fortune 500 firms include gender identity and expression in their policies.
Of those, 40 have expanded their policies since January 2004, including Ford Motor Co., Pepsi Co., Wells Fargo, and Framingham-based Staples Inc., the only other Massachusetts company on the Fortune 500 list. It changed its policy in May, according to the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., a national support group for gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender people.
A spokesman for Staples yesterday declined to comment on the company's policy.
The support group, which announced Raytheon's decision yesterday, gave the firm a 100 percent rating on its Corporate Equality Index. The index rates US firms with at least 500 employees on the treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workers and investors based on information on domestic benefits, corporate policies, diversity training, and affinity groups.
Specialists said yesterday that some companies are reluctant to expand their policies because of confusion over the various definitions for different forms of sexuality, noting that many employers assume that sexual orientation will cover all groups when it refers only to relationships and attraction.
By contrast, gender expression and identity describe how people feel or express themselves.
''The expansion of gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender rights has been incremental," said Kitty Krupat, associate director of worker education at the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York. ''The recognition of the varieties of sexual identity has been slow in coming. People tend to think, well, you're gay, you're gay. For them, there is nothing in between and little variety within these categories."
At Raytheon, the push to include gender identity and expression in a company-wide policy began about five years ago with Amanda Simpson, a chief engineer and test pilot at Raytheon's Missile Systems Co., which employs 12,000 in Tucson. Simpson, 44, underwent a sex-change operation and became a woman about 6 1/2 years ago. She said in a phone interview that after her operation, she was surprised to learn the firm's policy did not include transgender or transsexual workers or people who either identify with the opposite sex, express their gender differently, or have had a medical and surgical sex change.
Simpson said about 18 other Raytheon employees are openly transsexual or transgender.
She said that in the past, US workers seeking to change their gender or form of expression quit their jobs and found new ones to avoid harassment.
''That's not the road I chose," Simpson said. ''The company offered to transfer me. It had supported other people in that way before, but I said, 'I like where I am, and I like the people I work with.' "
She said the decision to expand the policy took on new life after Bell's appointment in January.
''It might be that the out-going diversity person told him the policy needed to be changed and Bell made it a priority," Simpson said. ''That says a lot for Raytheon. It says it really embraces diversity."
Jeremy Bishop, acting director of Pride at Work, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, said more companies are starting to rethink their policies.
''More people are transitioning on the job, and they are more open about it," he said. ''There are also serious discrimination issues and companies are waking up to that . . . Some of it has to do with bathroom issues, people not feeling safe because of their identity. So we have been pushing for gender-neutral bathrooms . . . and we've been pushing companies to expand their policies."
Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com.