Hong Kong’s transgender community faces workplace discrimination, leading LGBT campaigner to launch company guidance scheme
- Discouraging employees from adopting female persona, mocking appearances: some of the workplace discrimination reported in Hong Kong
- Twenty-five companies sign up to follow guidance designed to protect trans people at work
When Liam Mak Wai-hon began a part-time bartending job at a steakhouse in Hong Kong’s Tsuen Wan earlier this year, he did not sense anything amiss at work.
Mak, born a female, started his hormone treatment in around August last year to embark on his transition to becoming a man. Boasting a stylish comb-over, and a totem tattoo in his inner arm, the 19-year-old had fully adopted his male identity by the time he took up the job.
But because he has not undergone the full sex-reassignment surgery required to have his gender status legally changed, he had to declare his gender as female when filling in his employment form with the restaurant.
A few days after he started work, Mak’s colleagues suddenly volunteered to take on back-breaking chores for him. He later found out why. “They told me that the manager had been going around, asking people to guess whether I am a man or a woman … He thought it was really funny,” said Mak, who eventually quit his job.
His experience illustrates challenges the transgender community in Hong Kong continue to face and treatment they often encounter at the workplace. Most behaviour from colleagues stem from a lack of understanding, despite some headway gained in recent years for the city’s LGBT community as a result of a series of high-profile legal victories over the government.
Last week, the Association of World Citizen Hong Kong China, a charity founded in 2013 to support the city’s transgender community, released online content called “Guidance To Employers To Build Trans-friendly Workplaces”, in the hope it could provide some advice to businesses in the city.
It urged employers not to get bogged down by documentary proof when addressing the gender of an employee, and to train human resources staff to avoid potentially discriminatory situations. The booklet, which is available on the association’s website, also urged employers to protect the identities of transgender employees.
The association’s founder Mimi Wong said 25 companies, mostly multinationals, had pledged to implement the guidance as of Sunday.