International Transgender Day of Visibility Mini-Series: Part 2 of 2
Practical ways the insurance industry can support transgender inclusion
In this, the second of our two-part mini-series celebrating International Transgender Day of Visibility, we spoke with Amanda G Hilton and Jackson Hayes. Both are transgender professionals and members of Link.
We asked them about the insurance industry. What was it like for them to transition at work? What could insurance firms do differently to be more welcoming and inclusive of trans people? What practical steps should employers keep in mind? Lastly, how can the work of Link, the LGBTQ+ network for insurance help companies in the industry to be more supportive?
How was your experience of transitioning at work?
Jackson: My experience with RSA has been very easy. The company is very forward when it comes to their support of trans people – and their support of everyone. It’s fantastic to see and I love to see other companies making those strides as well. So it’s all headed in the right direction.
“I had to fight to terminate an abusive phone call because that wasn’t in the company handbook.”
I did have some problems during the transition dealing with some customer who were degrading to me because they thought my name and my voice didn’t match up. I had to fight to be able to terminate a phone call when they were being abusive because it wasn’t in the handbook.
Once I pointed it out to HR and senior leaders, they were very supportive and came up with a new policy. But until then, the company simply hadn’t thought about it because it hadn’t happened before. This is five years ago now, and the firm has come on in leaps and bounds since then.
Amanda: I’ve had endless support from my firm, all the way up. The managing partner came to see me in Manchester during my transition to check everything was okay. And she was brilliant. So that really does help.
I helped my firm on our transitioning at work policy, too. They were actually in the process of writing it when I came out and transitioned. So the timing was perfect. Now, anyone who follows me has got what I hope is a much better blueprint.
Since then, I know of one who is in the process of doing it, and another one who came out as non-binary. I only hope by being the first that I’ve helped make it a little easier and less intimidating to go through what I went through and become their happier selves much earlier than I did.
What could and should insurance firms be doing to become more inclusive of trans people?
Amanda: In insurance, they are pretty well advanced – the big firms, anyway. The great thing about the big insurance firms being multinational and crossing many boundaries is that they establish what their company stands for and then apply the same principles across all their markets.
Jackson: I think where the whole industry has changed over the years is that while something might not occur frequently, now it’s thought and spoken about in ways that they weren’t before. That’s fantastic, but there are some aspects that still need work.
Do you have any practical advice on what firms could do better?
Amanda: Well, having a transitioning at work policy for starters! If we’re talking about the minutiae of it, I think gender neutral toilets – when I go to the loo, I pee and then I put my lipstick on and that’s it, so gender neural toilets are really no threat to anyone.
“When you support and celebrate the people who work for you, those people will think a lot of your business and make that business a happier and more productive place to work.”
In our firm the toilet doors are 10 foot high, and you wouldn’t know anyway whether you’re in a male or female one apart from the sign on the door.
And I think language is important. Getting the terminology right. We’re encouraged to put pronouns on our email signatures. I personally would go further and make it obligatory – or at least customary – because that sends out a strong signal that this is something we care deeply about.
Perhaps the legal part of the insurance industry is a bit slow in doing that, but I see other firms saying yeah, we are going to do that. You see others openly celebrating the diversity of their employees. Be it gay, straight, celebrating Ramadan or marking International Women’s Day, as we did earlier this month. When you support and celebrate the people who work for you in this way, those people will think a lot of your business and make that business a happier and more productive place to work.
Jackson: I think this is about culture and education. Education is always going to be a key aspect of improving the workplace; it’s just a question of how long it takes for that to trickle from the DEI department to the managers on the floor.
How can insurance companies educate their workforce about transgender and other LGBTQ+ communities?
Jackson: Groups like Link are key to help companies make that stride because they are great at pumping out educational tools, events, speakers. These are people who live this day in, day out and they’re in the insurance industry, so when companies need guidance on where to turn, Link is there. I think it can be really instrumental in the change that will come.
Amanda: Link is also doing things like collecting all the transitioning at work policies in the market and putting together a composite of best practice. For instance, if a broker does this or that and they’ve come up with an idea no one else has thought of, we can pick that up as a kind of gold standard and filter that throughout the industry as best practice. This is one of the practical things that Link’s Trans and Non-Binary Forum is currently working on.
Jackson: I’d not met that many trans people in my life until I joined Link. All these fantastic, successful people were right there. And it just it blew my mind because they have succeeded in life. And I only see trans people around my age. I never see trans people who are older. It was very welcoming and reassuring to see that.
Amanda: This is what Link really does well. It brings people from the various LGBTQ+ communities and from different parts of the industry under the same umbrella and says, “Okay, you might not necessarily work for an insurance company, but you are part of the industry.” I think if the insurance industry as a whole starts setting an example, then their supply chain and affiliates will follow suit – and that will bring forward societal change, because in the end it comes down to money, and nothing is more influential than that.
“If you handle my community badly or thoughtlessly, word will get around and we will shun you, as will others who support us.”
Take the example of how organisations treat the trans community. This is important as a customer too. I have just changed my broadband provider. Despite the fact that I’d given my deed poll and told them everything years ago when I transitioned, I was still getting emails addressing me as “mister”. And I went, “Yeah, you’ve got to work on your diversity issues!”
So if you handle my community badly or thoughtlessly, word will get around and we will shun you, as will others who support us. On the flip side, an organisation that is good at this will earn our loyalty. When I see organisations at Pride, openly celebrating that they have a strong LGBTQ+ community, I think more of that brand both as somewhere I want to work for or somewhere I want to buy from.
That’s what I’m trying to do now as part of Link and as part of all the other organisations I’m a part of. I want others out there to know the support structure is there, that there are people like me who have been through it. We’re going to go out there and educate firms on the challenges and issues they need to address. We’re aiming to be a positive force for change in that respect.
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Amanda G Hilton, a trans woman in her 50s who transitioned six years ago, is a Senior Chartered Legal Executive in Corporate Insurance and Risk at DAC Beachcroft. She is a passionate advocate of LGBTQ+ rights, Lead Trustee of Liverpool City Region Pride Foundation, Co-Chair of Link Up North the insurance industry LGBTQ+ network, Co-Chair of Spectrum DAC Beachcroft’s LGBTQ+ & Allies Network, and a member of the Link steering committee.
Jackson Hayes, a trans man in his mid-twenties who came out as transgender six years ago, is a customer service manager at RSA. He is also Co-Chair of RSA’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group and a member of Link’s steering committee.
