The Guild of Students’ Trans Officer Em Andress announced in a statement on Wednesday that there will now be a ‘preferred name’ option in the New Core payroll system. This means that transgender employees will not have to use their ‘deadname,’ or birth name, reducing the risk of them being outed as transgender to their co-workers.

Since being implemented in June New Core, the University’s new payroll system, has had a number of problems. These include staff members not being paid on time, leading to student staff forming the group University of Birmingham Student Workers to campaign for pay. 

As Redbrick revealed in March, New Core made staff members’ protected information available to anyone with access to the system, potentially disclosing transgender workers’ birth names and biological sex. 

Hopefully, this will alleviate the issue of trans people being outed to their co-workers or being forced to use their deadname when at work

Alongside not having the option for members of staff to add a preferred name, it required employees to choose between two binary gender options and made trans staff’s deadnames visible to their colleagues.

If revealed, this information has the potential to cause trans staff distress and harm.

In the statement released on Facebook Andress said: ‘Whilst I acknowledge that this does not solve all of the problems with New Core, I am pleased to report that thanks to efforts from myself, Joshua Williams and numerous other people and groups, New Core now has a ‘preferred name’ field. Hopefully, this will alleviate the issue of trans people being outed to their co-workers or being forced to use their deadname when at work.’

He went on to reassure students and staff that he will be continuing to meet with the University of Birmingham Student Workers to come to a solution to the remaining problems facing trans members of staff and said he hopes this will make people feel more comfortable being a student worker at UoB.