Introduction: ‘Work is a trans issue’

This publication summarises the main messages from a conference on working life conditions for trans people, held in Stockholm on 23 October 2024. A trans person is someone whose gender identity does not correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth.

The conference was based on the knowledge review ‘Trans People’s Working Life Conditions in the Nordic Region’, published in spring 2024 by Nordic Information on Gender (NIKK). The knowledge review compiles results from previous Nordic studies and provides an overall picture that shows that trans people face particular obstacles in their working lives. Prejudice and poor treatment affect recruitment processes as well as work environments and opportunities for career development, which has concrete impacts, not least on transgender people’s finances.

The conference highlighted the responsibility of employers and trade unions in particular. Several experts also emphasised the need to tackle disinformation and negative stereotypes about trans people that find their way into the workplace.

– Working life does not take place in a vacuum but is of course influenced by what happens in the surrounding society, noted conference moderators El Häkkinen (SE) and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir (IS) in their opening speech.

They also offered a reminder of the diversity of experiences within the transgender community, and that some within the community face multiple types of oppression:

– Some of us are trans people facing homo- and biphobia, ableism, racism, sexism – made-up borders with fatal outcomes. Some of us belong to indigenous peoples, living under the rule and domination of colonial powers. Some of us do not conform with the gender binary and are not legally recognised by the Nordic states, with Iceland as the only exception. Some of us live long lives; some of us die far too young. Some of us are extremely rich; some of us live in poverty.

Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir (IS) and El Häkkinen (SE). Photo: Maja Brand