Mary Ann Horton - Diversity Work

Diversity Work

Horton is a transsexual woman. Adopting the name Mary Ann in 1987, Horton founded Columbus' first transgender support group, the Crystal Club, in 1989. In 1997, she joined EQUAL Lucent's LGBT employee resource group, and saw the value of being "out" at work, supported by an Equal Opportunity (EO) nondiscrimination policy. At the time, no major company included transgender language in their EO policy. Horton asked for its inclusion in Lucent's policy, and recommended the language "gender identity, characteristics, or expression". As a result, Lucent became the first large company to add transgender-inclusive language to its EO policy in 1997.

At the time, Horton identified as a crossdresser, presenting sometimes as Mark and sometimes as Mary Ann. After the Lucent EO policy was published, Horton worked at Lucent primarily as Mark, but occasionally as Mary Ann. She was the first known crossdresser to successfully work part-time as a woman for a large company. Despite controversy about the ability of corporate America to deal with a part-time crossdresser, Horton's workplace experience was positive.

Horton championed the addition of transgender-inclusive language with other companies, supporting its addition to Apple, Xerox, Chase, and later to Bank One and Sempra Energy. The "characteristics" term was intended to include intersex individuals, but was removed after discussions with intersex activists who stated that "gender expression" best includes their needs. Today, the "gender identity or expression" language is a best practice to protect transgender workers from discrimination.

Horton was awarded the "Trailblazer" award by Out & Equal Workplace Advocates in October, 2001 for her work at Lucent and Avaya. The next week, she transitioned, presenting full time as Mary Ann. Over the next few years, she took appropriate medical steps, and legally changed her name to Mary Ann Horton and her sex to female.

In the 1990s, most employer health insurance polices denied coverage for sex reassignment surgery (SRS) or anything related to it. Horton advocated for the inclusion of transgender health benefits (THBs) in these policies. She documented Lucent's coverage of SRS in 2000. and championed the inclusion of points for THBs in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, which were added in 2005.

In 2002, Horton gathered data from 13 of 15 major SRS surgeons to determine incidence, intrinsic prevalence, and average cost of SRS-related surgeries. This data, presented at the Out & Equal Annual Workplace Summit showed that the cost of THB coverage, previously believed to be very high, is actually very low, less than 40 cents per US resident per year. This data, combined with the HRC CEI points, has led to increased coverage of THBs by large employers.