CL
Carl L

1 reviews | Active since Jun 2012

29 May 2018, 09:28

ABSA doesn't care about Transgender Clients

ABSA is proving to me more and more that they really do not care about transgender and non-binary clients. We are living in a new era where gender identities are finding expression and being less suppressed but ABSA seems adamant to still be part of an outdated era where gender was seen as binary. After repeatedly discussing with ABSA that I am a transgender womxn and that I would like to be referred to as the correct gender and honorific I still get calls from call centre agents misgendering me, not asking my preferred pronouns or honorific. What's worse is that despite saying that I am the actual account holder, call centre agents refer to me in the third person as if the gender of the account holder they think they are supposed to be speaking to has more legitimacy than the actual person who they are speaking to. So even after asking ABSA to conscientise their staff about gender diversity they clearly have done absolutely nothing about it. I was assigned male at birth, I was NOT born into the 'wrong' body. I was given a gender that I later, after much incorrect gender conditioning by family and society, realised is not who I was. Why does ABSA still insist on using the gender that was given to me when I was too young to decide for myself what gender I wanted? ABSA STILL doesn't give the option to change your honorific to the one you want and dictates to clients what this honorific should be. This misgendering is contributing to the erasure of my transgender identity and is an attack on my personhood and undermines my constitutional right to not be discriminated against on the grounds of gender. It looks like I will have to look at other banks when making any major financial decisions in future, banks who are moving with the times and not being stuck in an age where people still think there are only two genders!

0
Replies (1)
Absa
Absa's reply30 May 2018, 11:37
Official

Dear Client

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. We will investigate the matter and provide feedback once the matter has been resolved.

Regards
Vanessa Crowe
Group Customer Care
Absa Bank Ltd