This post was written by Hatchet reporter Lauren Grady.

For Rachel See, a flub as simple as a colleague using the wrong pronoun can be enough to tax the transgender woman emotionally.

That’s why See, the lead technology counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, tutored GW Law School students Wednesday about working with transgender clients, emphasizing the importance of dismissing stigmas and myths that are commonly used to describe transgender people.

“Transgender folks are people and they deserve respect,” she said.

The workshop was part of National Pro Bono Week, which is spent educating students on volunteer law service.

Desiree Woods, co-president of the LGBT-focused student organization Lambda Law, said leaders in the school’s Pro Bono Program approached her about helping law students overcome the lack of information about working with transgender clients.

“There are no classes in the law school that teach about this. It’s an issue that’s never really been dealt with,” Woods said.

See, along with Alison Gill of The Trevor Project, stuck to the basics about working with transgender clients when speaking to the roughly 15 students who attended.

The two trans women, who are also volunteers at TransLAW, explained the differences between the gray areas in gender and sexuality that often seems blurry to budding lawyers.

They went through slides explaining “birth sex” – the sex assigned at birth – and “gender identity” – a person’s internal sense of gender – pointing to the importance of recognizing the difference between the two when dealing with clients.

Transgender people disproportionately face employment discrimination that hurt their ability to find jobs. It they can find a job, they often face harassment and discrimination in the work place.

As a former lawyer, Gill said she faced discrimination in her career. She was forced into a part-time position and eventually found herself forced out of the job.

When transgender clients come to lawyers and law students with similar issues, See encouraged students to be open and honest so that they can address clients in the way that they want to be addressed.

“I think that transgender issues will continue to increase. It would be beneficial for lawyers to know more about the issue,” said Gill.