Nearly 80 percent of the nation’s transgender workers say they’ve experienced employment discrimination, harassment, or mistreatment, according to a report from a pair of think tanks.

Michaela Mendelsohn, a franchise owner of six El Pollo Loco restaurants in Southern California and a transgender woman herself, can tell you all about it.

“I do some mentoring at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and there was this girl from Honduras who had a great job history,” Mendelsohn said. “Things were going well in all of her job interviews until she finally had to show her ID and it showed a different gender. No one would hire her, but I did and she’s done great and is now on a management track at one of my restaurants.”

That’s one of the success stories. But Lee Schubert, author of “Women Incognitio: Transsexual Without Transition,” said it’s not uncommon for employers or fellow employees to pose rude and inappropriate questions to transgenders.

After years of internal anguish, Schubert, 74, of Morristown, New Jersey, opted to shift her gender identity from male to a female while in her 50s — but without hormones or surgery. As a “non-transition transsexual,” her journey toward acceptance of her true gender has been decadeslong, difficult and yet remarkable.

“Some people’s curiosity about transgenders will lead them to ask questions they wouldn’t ask other people,” she said. “One of the chief ones someone might ask is if you’d had transition surgery. That’s like asking a man if he’s been circumcised. And questions about your sexuality, like whether you are gay or straight, aren’t good questions to ask either. People shouldn’t be asking about your sex life.”

Another issue employers and coworkers grapple with is pronouns. How do you refer to someone — as he or she?

“You should simply ask what pronoun someone wants,” Schubert said. “The answer might be he or she, but some will want to be called ‘they’ because they don’t identify with either male or female. It can get confusing.”

These issues are uncharted waters for many employers. But the challenges transgenders face are just as real.

A 2015 report from the Center for American Progress and the Movement Advancement Project reveals that employment discrimination is a fact of life for trans people. And it has serious economic consequences.

The study, “Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for Being Transgender,” shows that as many as 47 percent of trans workers report being unfairly denied a job. And 78 percent report being harassed, mistreated or discriminated against at work.

“There are two main reasons why employers won’t hire transgenders,” Mendelsohn said. “They are concerned about how customers will react. But we’ve had nothing but positive feedback at our restaurants. Employers are also concerned about how it will affect the relationship between their employees. And again, we haven’t had one incident in four years.”

Mendelsohn heads up the California Trans Work Project, a program that’s dedicated to working with service industries and chambers of commerce to create entry-level jobs for trans people with pathways to management through education and training.

For other transgender people, the experience has been mixed.

Emily Velasco, who worked as a reporter for a Southern California newspaper before landing a job with Cal Poly Pomona’s public affairs department in late 2012, made her transition from male to female a year after arriving at the school. She had previously been known as Justin.

“I was on hormones for about a year before I came out at work,” she said. “I spoke with to my boss and our HR people before I did it. I announced it to my co-workers on a Friday afternoon and the following Monday I came to work as Emily.”

Velasco said her experience has been mostly positive.

“All of my coworkers were very supportive, although there were couple people who were not accepting of it,” she said. “They never caused an issue or said anything to me but I know that they went to HR and expressed some concerns. They were told that they could be sent to a training class that talks about these kinds of issues.”

The Transgender Law Center offers some tips for working with transgender coworkers:

• Demonstrate respect: Transgender coworkers do not expect any special treatment, they simply want to be respected.

• Recognize the difference between your personal values and the community values of your workplace: Some people have political, cultural, and/or religious objections to someone being transgender. Being professional and respectful to a transgender coworker does not mean you have to abandon those beliefs. But you must uphold common workplace values of dignity and respect for all your coworkers.

• Respect your coworker’s privacy and confidentiality: It is inappropriate to ask a coworker — transgender or not — questions about their private medical history, such as whether they have had surgery.

• Help coworkers who are having trouble with another employee’s transition: While some coworkers may have a special interest in discussing transgender-related issues, others may not. It might make sense to you to discuss a news story or movie about a transgender issue with your coworker. But before doing so, make sure that your coworker really wants to discuss these things.