ESF 60: Inclusion of Transgender Individuals into the Labour Market

For the past few years MGRM has been supporting a number of transgender individuals who have encountered considerable obstacles in accessing education, employment and health care. Very few people understand what it means to be transgender, including family members. MGRM had participated in two Xarabank programmes early in March 2007 dealing with Trans issues and in June also organised a focus group with the Health Department to explore how health services could meet the needs of trans persons.

Another initiative involved applying for funding to undertake a research and training project with the following objectives:

A research project to identify the employment and training needs of transgender individuals as no such local data exists as yet;
The training of transgender individuals with a view to increasing their basic skills such as lifeskills, literacy and IT;
The training of transgender individuals in the equal opportunities legislation that currently exist in Maltese law, primarily the Equality between Men and Women Act which also includes the role of the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality in order to empower the individuals concerned and facilitate access to social rights;
The training of ETC/Trade Union officials as well as HR Personnel within the private and public sector in order to facilitate increased awareness of both the needs and rights of transgender individuals as well as the obligations of employers with regards to equal opportunities legislation;
The publication of resources for employers and transgender individuals that aim to inform both of their respective rights and obligations as well as establish guidelines on the promotion of inclusive workplaces.

The project – funded through the European Social Fund and the Sigrid Rausing Trust – is still underway and will come to an end in August. Preliminary findings of the research conducted with employers indicate that a great deal still needs to be done to increase awareness and tackle prejudice and discrimination towards transgender employees. Over 1,000 surveys were distributed online with just 67 questionnaires being submitted, of which only 43 were complete. Most respondents were from the private sector and around 60% were Maltese owned companies.

Most of the companies had quite a diverse workforce in relation to race/ethnic origin, disability, religion, sexual orientation, age and gender. 77.6% of the 46 respondents stated that they had an equal opportunities policy. However, in 71.7% of the cases this is not written. Encouraging for this study is that 95.3% of equal opportunities policies include discrimination on the ground of gender. This is a positive step as discrimination on the grounds of gender identity would therefore be covered under such policies.

A number of in-depth interviews were also conducted with HR managers of companies from various sectors. Generally, the research suggests that the bigger the company the more tolerant management is likely to be. Findings also point to a lack of awareness of trangender issues. Many failed to distinguish between gay, lesbian and transgender. The study also shows that there is more tolerance towards gay and lesbian individuals since these are less "visible" than transgender persons.

A seminar was held on 2nd July 2008 to present the research findings. This will hopefully lead to government policies that are more inclusive of transgender persons.