Creating a safe and welcoming environment

UCD’s Gender Identity and Expression Policy, adopted in 2017, was the CIPD Diversity and Inclusion Award winner earlier this year. According to the award citation, the judges were impressed by “the thoughtful design and implementation, the co-creation and inclusive approach with students and staff and then the influencing of significant structural changes to buildings. This initiative redefined the boundaries of the HR role and demonstrated how HR built a strong voice that delivered impact and scale.”

The Gender Identity and Expression policy was a radical initiative that led to a cultural transformation within the university. The policy was developed following university-wide consultation and has resulted in the creation of a supportive environment for gender identity and expression.

“One of our objectives is to create an inclusive culture for the entire university community, which is made up of staff, students and visitors and anyone who comes onto the campus,” says Rory Carey, UCD’s director of culture and engagement. “What sets it apart is the nature of UCD itself. We could have just done a gender identity and expression policy for staff and left it at that. You see that in a lot of organisations. But we had to do it for students as well. UCD is a global university and we have students from all over the world. Wherever you come from, irrespective of your gender identity, you can express yourself the way you want to here in UCD.”

The scale of the university also set it apart. “UCD is about the same size as Drogheda,” Carey says. “When you count all our employees and students, there are more than 40,000 people here. When we were rolling out the initiative, we needed to ensure every facet was represented on project groups.”

The initiative began at the very top, according to UCD equality, diversity and inclusion manager Marcellina Fogarty. “We need to engage and get the support of the senior management team, including the president,” she says. “We kept them involved throughout the development of the policy. When it came to the approval stage, there were no surprises. We established a representative working group made up of staff, students, LGBT community representatives, student advisers and so on. We also engaged with Transgender Equality Network Ireland to ensure we were adopting best practice around gender identity and expression.”

Far beyond mere signage

The physical expression of the policy went far beyond mere signage. “A lot of places just put up signs,” says Carey. “But this policy is integrated into the university’s broader diversity and respect policy. It’s about respect in the workplace and the classroom. We spent quite a lot of time training staff before launch to ensure that everyone is familiar with the policy and how to deal with people in a respectful and sensitive manner.”

While signage has changed, so too have facilities. “We have gone from a situation where transgender facilities were not always available, where people might have had to walk long distances to a toilet and it had become a human rights issue, to one where facilities are available in every building,” Carey says.

Another aspect is the student registration process. “They have to go through this to get their student card and so on,” he explains. “We have stripped out bureaucracy to allow students change their name without needing official documentation to do so.”

Students also receive all graduation documentation in the name of their choosing rather than what appears on their birth certificate.

“Everyone, staff and students, can now self-declare their gender whether that’s male, female or gender non-binary and so on,” says Fogarty. “We have also changed the language we use and that has had a big impact on our culture. We ask what pronouns people prefer we use. We recognise that people have different gender identities and that’s okay.”

The real test is the impact on the university’s transgender population, according to Carey. “It has to be transformative for them. They have to feel that they can use facilities on campus without fear or embarrassment or having the feeling of being a second-class citizen. The feedback from the transgender community has been very positive. They can see that the university is taking the issue seriously and that we are mainstreaming it into everyday life on campus.”