Today, on Transgender Day of Visibility and César Chávez Day, Legal Aid at Work and Beyond Binary Legal are excited to announce the launch of our Transgender and Nonbinary Workers’ Toolkit. We created this toolkit in collaboration with a focus group of trans and nonbinary community members. The goal is to provide gender-diverse workers with information to understand their legal rights at work (with a focus on California law). The toolkit also provides practical advice on how to take action when employers break the law. It is available for you to download for free here. It is currently available in both English and Spanish, and we hope to expand it to other languages.
The toolkit fills an important gap. Even before the June 2020 Supreme Court decision extending federal workplace discrimination protections to transgender employees, Legal Aid at Work was receiving an increasing number of calls from transgender and nonbinary workers facing harassment and discrimination at work. Our Gender Equity & LGBTQ Rights Program has been proud to assist many clients. But we are unable to directly represent all the transgender and nonbinary workers that come to us, and we know there are many others we have yet to reach.
While Legal Aid at Work already has a fact sheet about Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination and Harassment, we designed the toolkit to be significantly more comprehensive. First, it goes beyond our prior know-your-rights materials by covering issues that transgender and nonbinary workers may face over the full lifecycle of their employment relationship, from application to separation, including issues other than discrimination or harassment. It also features many ready-to-use sample letters and templates so that workers can be their own advocates. Finally, it addresses key considerations that transgender and nonbinary people may think about in seeking legal representation.
We look forward to getting this toolkit in the hands of workers and other advocates, and we ask that you please help us share this valuable resource. As always, we also welcome your thoughts and feedback.