An unprecedented human rights case between a transgender employee and the Department of Corrections has been settled. In 2024, the man at the centre of the case told Alex Casey what he\u2019s fighting for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Department of Corrections has settled an unprecedented case filed by a transgender employee after he alleged discrimination on the basis of sex in 2024. Adam\u2019s* complaint was made on the grounds that Corrections barred him from performing prisoner searches due to his gender, and that he experienced harassment and bullying at work.<\/p>\n
The landmark settlement includes an apology to the man by Corrections, a commitment by them to implement better training programmes, and a confidential compensation payment. It also represents the very first time that a transgender person has been at the centre of a discrimination case based on sex in Aotearoa.<\/p>\n
\u201cDignity is a central human rights value,\u201d said Nicole Browne, principal solicitor at the Office of Human Rights Proceedings. \u201cAny denial of a transgender person\u2019s identity is also an infringement on their dignity.\u201d Adam expressed relief the case was resolved. \u201cOne of the main reasons I brought this case was to show that the transgender community deserves protection and respect,\u201d he said. \u201cI just want to be able to exist like any other man.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2024, Adam spoke exclusively with The Spinoff about his traumatic experience in the workplace, and why he was continuing to fight for the rights of the transgender community.<\/p>\n
The following story contains transphobic language and references to self-harm. Take care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Adam* knew he was different from the other girls from a very young age. It wasn\u2019t just that he was into cars and trucks and preferred to shop in the boys department, or that he insisted on wearing his Thomas the Tank Engine gumboots with his dress. It was that even when he was just a toddler, he recalls being deeply distressed by the fact that he wasn\u2019t a boy. \u201cI remember comparing myself with another boy and noticing he was different to what I was, and I just burst out in tears,\u201d he says. \u201cI believed I was broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his high school years, Adam says that puberty had a \u201cmassive effect\u201d on his mental health. When he began developing breasts, he bought bras that were far too small to act as binders, and hated using the female changing rooms. \u201cI was just constantly in this space of \u2018this is not how my body should be working\u2019,\u201d he says. That confusion turned into frustration, which turned into anger, depression and self harm. \u201cYou just start to think \u2018what\u2019s the point of being on the planet if you can\u2019t even be yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n
After finishing high school, Adam says he felt totally aimless when it came to both his identity and his future. \u201cI had no idea what the heck I wanted to do with my life,\u201d he says. \u201cSomeone in my family was working for Corrections at the time so I just got thrown into it and never left.\u201d Beginning his career as a female corrections officer in a North Island prison in 2017, he remembers initially being treated like a weak girl. \u201cTypical in that environment,\u201d he says. \u201cUntil you prove them wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The duties of a Corrections officer can include running unlock, prisoner safety searches, and using \u201ccontrol and restraint\u201d when required. \u201cI describe it like being a police officer on the inside,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty high risk environment and you\u2019ve got to be alert at all times.\u201d Because of the unique and sometimes dangerous environment, he says people in his line of work tend towards a certain mindset when it comes to personal matters: \u201cyou can\u2019t let what\u2019s happening on the outside affect you when you\u2019re working on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But early on in his Corrections career, Adam had started a personal journey that would change the course of his life. He had started seeing a counsellor, who suggested that he head along to a community group for gender diverse people. There, he says the \u201cpuzzle pieces\u201d of his identity quickly came together. \u201cI got a real education from them and got to know lots of other trans and non binary people,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat\u2019s when I was like, \u2018hold on a minute. I\u2019m just like you. So if I had to put myself in a category: I must be trans\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He first came out to his mum as a transgender man in 2021. \u201cIt was terrifying, because I didn\u2019t know what reaction I was going to get,\u201d he says. \u201cBut she just turned around and said \u2018your whole childhood just make sense now\u2019.\u201d His close family and friends were much the same: \u201ca lot of them just went \u2018oh sweet \u2013 we already knew\u2019,\u201d he laughs. \u201cI was like \u2018thanks everyone, you could have helped me work that out\u2019.\u201d The only negative reaction came from his father, who \u201cdidn\u2019t want to know me whatsoever\u201d after hearing the news. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Adam felt a \u201chuge weight\u201d had been taken off his shoulders after coming out to his inner circle. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t describe it like ecstatic happiness, more just total relief,\u201d he says. \u201cI no longer had to put on a mask. It\u2019s really hard work, trying to be someone that you\u2019re not.\u201d He began the process to change his gender on all his legal documents including his passport, his licence and his birth certificate, legally changed his name and started on hormone therapy. <\/p>\n
\u201cI look back at it and I wish I just came out earlier. But it was the fear, the fear of what others would think.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, there was one very large part of his life that remained shrouded in fear: his workplace. \u201cIt\u2019s not a very inclusive environment and the jokes you would hear from other staff made it very clear what their views would be,\u201d he says. \u201cIt does scare you a bit, because as soon as you\u2019re not in that \u2018normal\u2019 box, you become the target of that bullying.\u201d He tried to \u201cbottle it up\u201d, but struggled. \u201cGoing to work trying to be one thing and then being something else on the outside was making my life even more difficult, so I had to suck it up and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI look back at it and I wish I just came out earlier. But it was the fear, the fear of what others would think.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a private meeting in March 2022, Adam told his manager that he was coming out as a transgender man, and would like his name and pronouns changed at work. The reaction was as he had feared: \u201cHe turned around back to me and said \u2018well you can\u2019t just change your name because you want to\u2019.\u201d Adam left the meeting feeling like he had been \u201cpushed back down into a hole\u201d and that he would never be able to be his true self at work. \u201cIt made me feel like it just didn\u2019t matter, like I\u2019d have to get over it because nothing\u2019s going to change.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Spinoff approached the Department of Corrections with Adam\u2019s experience for their response, and while they submitted a formal statement, they were unable to comment on specific details. \u201cDue to our legislative obligations as an employer and our statutory obligations under the Privacy Act 2020, we are limited in what information we can provide,\u201d a spokesperson for Corrections said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the initial reaction from his manager, Adam continued to request that the principal Corrections officers change his name on the internal daily rosters. Where some supported him, others would refuse and change it back to his deadname, meaning he was never quite sure what name he would be addressed by. Even after he had supplied documentation of his legal name change to the Department of Corrections, Adam says it took \u201cthree months of chasing and phone calls\u201d to have his name formally updated within their systems.<\/p>\n
In November 2022, the prison director sent out a site-wide email with an update about Adam\u2019s new pronouns and name, and that he would be using male facilities moving forward. It also asked that everyone respect his new identity. \u201cI gave permission for it to go, but I wasn\u2019t horrendously comfortable with it and I didn\u2019t really know any other way to go about it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following the all staff email, Adam says he became \u201chammered\u201d with transphobic jokes and nicknames such as \u201ctranny\u201d, \u201cit\u201d and \u201cboy-girl\u201d from his colleagues, who he says made \u201cno effort\u201d with his new identity. \u201cIt was not a great experience. No one seemed to really care about my feelings, they just took the piss out of me and didn\u2019t give a crap.\u201d Misgendering became a daily occurrence, and he was scared to use the male bathrooms because of the looks he would receive, and the comments about whether he was \u201cdone trying to be a man\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adam also stopped using the male changing rooms at work after a colleague joked that they should be careful not to \u201cconvert him back\u201d in getting undressed around him. Senior colleagues attempted to have him moved to a different unit, claiming that the testosterone treatment was making him aggressive. \u201cThey came up with all sorts of different stuff, just trying to make it all a big joke,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
\u201cI got to a stage where I knew every day I stepped in there, I was going to get picked on, that I was going to get misgendered, and that I was going to get deadnamed.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Even when he would try to get on with his job, Adam lacked clarity from his managers around which duties he was able to carry out. For example, rub down procedures, in which prisoners are physically patted down by officers to check for contraband, are only to be carried out by male officers on male prisoners, and female officers on female prisoners. <\/p>\n
As these occur daily, Adam had asked \u201cstraight away\u201d for direction on whether it would be appropriate to conduct the searches on male prisoners, but was told the question would be passed up the chain.<\/p>\n
With a lack of answers from management in relation to conducting male tasks, Adam felt like he was being kept in a \u201cgrey area\u201d at work. Even though he presented as male, staff would ask questions during briefings about whether Adam was \u201callowed\u201d to do rub downs yet, which would inadvertently out him as transgender to new staff members. \u201cIt just made everything extremely awkward and sometimes made me feel extremely unsafe,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d be on edge all day, never knowing who knows what or when they are going to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a result, he began isolating himself from other staff members, picking up night shifts where he would largely work alone. \u201cYou\u2019re just by yourself, you\u2019re not really prisoner facing because they\u2019re all locked up in their cells, so you\u2019re not really having to face anything,\u201d he explains. \u201cI tried to go for situations where I could minimise the amount of people I was around whenever possible.\u201d The night shifts took their toll on his wellbeing, and meant other parts of his life were neglected. \u201cYou don\u2019t really have a life outside of work \u2013 all you do is sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the end of 2022, two years since he had come out as a transgender man in his personal life and nine months since he had informed management of his new identity, Adam still had not received direction from Corrections about his ability to perform male duties. The daily uncertainty took a huge toll on his gender dysphoria and mental health. \u201cThere were stages where I pretty much wanted to kill myself, because what was the point?\u201d he says. \u201cIt was hard at work to be who I was, but it was even harder trying to be something I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d be on edge all day, never knowing who knows what or when they are going to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n
This ongoing sense of ambiguity put Adam in a particularly difficult situation during a routine safety search in December 2022. A group of eight prisoners were returning from outside the unit, and needed to be searched before entry. Adam and two female officers were to conduct the searches with metal detector wands, but none of the wands were working. Given that he was the only male staff member present, Adam says he had to make a call in an \u201coverwhelming situation\u201d to ensure the safety of everyone in the unit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had no equipment that was working, and no other male staff around, so I asked the prisoners \u2018are you okay with me conducting rub downs?\u2019\u201d With their consent, he began patting them down, but was promptly \u201cyelled at\u201d by a female Senior Corrections Officer who had been dealing with another situation nearby. \u201cI stopped immediately and was told to just use the wand, even though it wasn\u2019t working,\u201d he says. \u201cWe pretty much just acted like we were doing it, so they never actually got searched.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the incident, Adam wrote an email to his manager explaining what had happened, and acknowledged that he had not been given clear instructions from Corrections on whether he could conduct male tasks. A few weeks later, he received a Letter of Expectations from his employer upholding two complaints made by prisoners about the situation, one of which detailed a \u201cfemale\u201d staff member conducting rub downs on male prisoners. <\/p>\n
The letter deemed Adam\u2019s actions as \u201cunlawful\u201d, and warned of \u201cformal disciplinary action\u201d if they were to be repeated.<\/p>\n
While he says the prisoners are within their rights to complain, Adam disputed the \u201cunlawful\u201d ruling to his managers. \u201cI started really looking at it and asking them why I was being punished,\u201d he says. It was verbally explained that the decision was being based on his assigned sex at birth. \u201cSo in other words they were basing it on what they thought was in my pants \u2013 which they don\u2019t actually know either.\u201d He asked for this to be put in an email, but never received a written response detailing how they reached the decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As he continued challenging management \u2013 \u201cpretty much just sending email after email\u201d \u2013 Adam was still dealing with \u201cabsolutely horrible\u201d workplace conditions day to day. In one instance, he discovered that the name tag on his unit drawer had been changed back to his dead name by a coworker, which triggered feelings of extreme gender dysphoria and anxiety. \u201cI feel acute stress within this victimisation at work but I am unable to take stress leave as I believe that this will be used against me,\u201d he would later write in an impact statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the department\u2019s responsibility to keep me safe at work which should include educating people so that they can understand boundaries of acceptable behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When asked for comment on Adam\u2019s story, Corrections were unable to specifically address his experience, citing their statutory obligations under the Privacy Act 2020, but Liz Hawthorn, deputy commissioner for men\u2019s prisons, provided the following statement: \u201cMy expectation is that all of our prisons and other sites are safe and inclusive work environments where the identity of staff is recognised and respected. We will not tolerate any behaviour that is not respectful.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the gendered requirements of certain duties, Hawthorn added that these are in place to \u201cprotect the dignity and wellbeing of people in prison\u201d and that \u201call staff are entitled to carry out the full range of their duties that aligns with their gender\u201d. In the instance of objections, \u201cstaff are advised to first deescalate and educate, and discuss immediately with their line manager, a senior manager, or one of our Inclusion and Diversity Senior Advisors.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a year of fighting for answers on his own while still working at Corrections fulltime, Adam made a formal complaint to the Human Rights Commission in March 2023. Since then, his case has been escalated to the Office of Human Rights Proceedings, who will act on his behalf. \u201cHuman rights is all about dignity,\u201d says Nicole Browne, senior solicitor for the OHRP. \u201cThe Human Rights Act is meant to protect us from being treated differently because of our inherent characteristics. Adam just wanted to do his job, and he was told that because of who he is, he can\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hawthorn advised that in January 2024, nearly two years after Adam first sought clarity around his duties, an email was sent to frontline leaders at Corrections, asking them to \u201censure all their staff had clarity on the department\u2019s position that staff are entitled to carry out the full range of their duties that aligns with their gender\u201d. The email outlined that \u201cunder no circumstance should we restrict an employee\u2019s ability to undertake the full requirements of their role, and that we will support our staff and recognise their right to express their true gender.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In February 2024, Adam received an email confirming that he was now able to execute the full range of duties required of a male Corrections officer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
While the case is of huge personal significance for Adam, it is also groundbreaking in a legal sense. Although the Humans Rights Act (HRA) currently prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex, there\u2019s no explicit provision for gender<\/a>. When a 2006 members bill to add gender to the HRA was proposed by Georgina Beyer, the Crown Law (who will act on behalf of Corrections) provided then attorney-general Michael Cullen with the legal opinion that sex discrimination should also include discrimination on the basis that someone is transgender. Therefore explicitly adding gender, as the bill sought to, would be redundant.\u00a0<\/p>\n As Paul Thistoll explained on The Spinoff last week<\/a>, government departments and organisations such as the Human Rights Commission have developed policy based on this Crown Law opinion being \u201ctrue and valid\u201d for nearly two decades. \u201cThe problem is that this opinion has, to the best of our legal knowledge, never been tested at the Human Rights Review Tribunal,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThus, we find ourselves in a situation where policy is being made based on an opinion that is now 17 years old and untested.\u201d<\/p>\n That means Adam\u2019s complaint will be the first time that any court or tribunal will hear a case on the matter of sex discrimination that includes a transgender person. In other words, that 17-year-old opinion will finally be tested. \u201cIt is pretty groundbreaking, but it shouldn\u2019t be,\u201d Browne says. \u201cIt should be a well accepted point that transgender members of the public should be protected from discrimination.\u201d The case also arrives at a time when transgender rights are being questioned by politicians, with NZ First\u2019s \u2018Fair access to Bathrooms Bill<\/a>\u2019 proposing to fine people who do not use the public bathroom of their designated sex.<\/p>\n Due to significant delays in the Human Rights Review Tribunal, Browne says it will likely take more than a year for Adam\u2019s case to be heard, but the case will be impactful on its own. \u201cThis case will make it patently clear that trans employees are entitled to equal treatment under the Human Rights Act 1993,\u201d she says. \u201cThe case exposes a current gap in protection, particularly in the public sector, which needs to be addressed with input from the trans community. Ultimately, the Human Rights Act 1993 is about the inherent dignity of all of us, and that must include being safe at work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In the meantime, Adam is holding on to some of the positives that have come out of a tumultuous four years. He plays football weekly, he\u2019s fostering dogs and building Lego, and just this week he got a potential date to undergo top surgery. \u201cI used to have this extremely depressed, confused side of me, where now I don\u2019t really have that at all. I guess now I\u2019m just being my authentic self.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s also determined to keep fighting for not only his own rights, but the rights of other gender diverse people in his position. \u201cI\u2019m not the first and I won\u2019t be the last. And so why should others have to go through this?\u201d he says. And despite the immense toll the entire chapter has had on Adam\u2019s life so far, he\u2019s still not one to mince his words.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI figured I\u2019ve already gone through enough crap, so I might as well carry on and hopefully make it better for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n *Name has been changed to protect his identity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unprecedented human rights case between a transgender employee and the Department of Corrections has been settled. 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