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This paper explores the social and political implications of transgenderism for groups, organisations, institutions and for policy formation. One aim of transgender lobby groups such as Press for Change in the UK and the Australian W.O.M.A.N Network and others, is the right of male to female trans-women, both as clients and workers, to enter state and privately funded ‘gendered’ spaces. State funded gendered spaces include Women’s Health Centres, Domestic Violence Shelters, Rape Crisis Centres and privately funded organisations include groups such as Women’s Circus, Lesbian conferences and festivals. Trans-women may be pre or post operative. There is both strong support and strong resistance among ‘women born women’ for the recognition of trans-women as ‘real’ women and consequently there is strong debate as to whether trans-women should have the right to be employed in the above organisations and/or be clients or members. This has led to significant court cases and judgements. For example in Canada (2004) a court found on appeal from Vancouver Rape Relief that a trans-woman did not have the right to be trained as a worker for the sexual assault crisis line as this was a service that was dedicated to the needs of a particular social group. In Australia a court case in 2003 around the right of the annual Lesbian Conference and Festival to exclude trans-women was won by the transgender lobby group and led to the festival being cancelled. In-depth interviews were conducted with managers of gendered spaces, both some that had experienced trans-inclusion and some that had not. Discussions during the interviews centred around their values and policies about gendered spaces and the advantages and disadvantages of having gendered spaces, their experience of trans-inclusion where it had occurred and the impact on staff and clients of inclusion.

Stream: Gender and Sexuality

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Lorene Gottschalk is a Senior Lecturer in Management and Human Resource Management (HRM) in the School of Business, University of Ballarat. She primarily teaches HRM and Business Research Methods and Practice at undergraduate and post graduate level. In addition she lectures in the MBA program in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Beijing. Lorene has also tutored in Sociology in Ballarat and Political Science (Sexual Politics) at the University of Melbourne and in Management and Organisation Behaviour at RMIT. Lorene’s personal research focuses mainly on Gender issues, in particular Gender and Identity. She has presented at conferences and published both nationally and internationally in this area and has worked on several projects relevant to gender and sexuality.