Survey Shows Discrimination Against Transgender Americans

This week the President signed a new bill into law that penalizes hate crimes involving sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Hopefully this will make some people think twice before they commit acts of violence against someone because of who they are. But that's only a first step. In particular, Congress has the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, or ENDA, bubbling on a back burner. It appears that ENDA can pass both houses of Congress if it addresses employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but there is a question about whether it would pass if it included gender identity -- the so-called "inclusive ENDA."

It may be a little hard to keep all this straight if you happen to be part of the majority of people who are heterosexual and whose gender identity matches their unambiguous physical form. Sexual orientation means "who you are attracted to." It says nothing about whether a man is manly or a woman is womanly in any traditional sense. Gender identity is something else altogether, it's "who you are." In particular it is your sense of what sex you are. Most of us feel subjectively comfortable with the sex that was assigned to us at birth, usually our genitalia are clearly male or female and our sense of ourselves is consistent with our physical bodies. But that comfort is not universal; many people, for a variety of reasons, have the persistent sense that they are the gender opposite the one they are supposed to be. There are all kinds of chromosome and endocrine conditions that can cause this perception, and sometimes it just happens without any known explanation. People who experience themselves as having been assigned the correct sex are call cisgender, and those who feel they have been assigned the incorrect sex are transgender. Many transgender people eventually decide to live as the sex they experience themselves to be, rather than how other people tell them they should be. There are degrees to that decision, from alteration of dress and mannerisms to surgery and administration of hormones.

Someone who changes their sex after puberty typically retains features of their birth sex. A person with male anatomical features who passes puberty, for instance, will have a deep voice and a beard, even one who subjectively feels female, and one with female features will grow up to have breasts and curves and a smooth face, even with a male gender identity. Thus, if they decide to transition to the other sex after adulthood, they are often fairly identifiable to others -- expensive and extensive surgery can modify facial features and so on, but not everybody can afford all that. The result is that other people can often tell when someone has changed their sex, and the consequence is often discrimination, violence, and hateful language.

The National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force released preliminary findings of a survey last month, the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. They administered an extensive questionnaire to 6,450 transgender people in all fifty states plus Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands. Survey researchers compared transgender respondents' data with information from the Census Bureau and Labor Department.

Here are the key findings of the survey:

• Double the rate of unemployment: Survey respondents experience unemployment at twice the rate of the population as a whole.
  
• Near universal harassment on the job: Ninety-seven percent (97%) of those surveyed reported experiencing harassment or mistreatment on the job.
  
• Significant losses of jobs and careers: Forty-seven percent (47%) had experienced an adverse job outcome, such as being fired, not hired or denied a promotion.
  
• High rates of poverty: Fifteen percent (15%) of transgender people in our sample lived on $10,000 per year or less–double the rate of the general population.

National Transgender
Discrimination Survey Preliminary Findings

Unemployment was especially high for black transgender respondents at 26 percent, with a mean overall of thirteen percent, which the authors say was double the national unemployment rate at the time of the survey. Nearly half -- 47% -- had had an "adverse job action" -- they were fired, not hired, denied a promotion -- because of being transgender and more than a quarter of respondents -- twenty six percent -- had lost a job because of their gender identity or expression.

Quoting directly from the survey report:

Ninety-seven percent (97%) have experienced mistreatment, harassment, or discrimination on the job including: removal from direct contact with clients, disclosure of confidential information to co-workers, and physical or sexual assault.

Listen, in case that math is too hard for you, that is just about everybody. Almost every transgender person reports that they have been mistreated, harassed, or discriminated against at work.

Some individuals of the nutty persuasion may argue that social pressure is an effective tool to get nonconformists back in line. And I'll bet you would find out there are a lot of transgender people out there who keep their feelings to themselves, living a lie, because of the fear of harassment, mistreatment, and discrimination. You wonder how anybody thinks that's better, why the Family Blah Blah groups for instance argue against transgender people living as the person they really feel themselves to be, how it is better in any way to have members of society pretending to be something they are not, ashamed, afraid of their peers.

One last result from the survey:

Study respondents experience poverty at a much higher rate than the general population, with more than 27% reporting incomes of $20,000 or lower and more than 15% reporting incomes of $10,000 or lower. Only 7% percent of the general population reports incomes of $10,000 or lower.

This finding goes hand in hand with the previous one. Transgender people have a harder time getting a job, keeping it, and getting promoted, and so they make less money.

This preliminary report concludes:

Employment protections are paramount. Transgender people face discrimination, harassment and anti-transgender violence in many areas of their lives. These conditions create significant barriers to employment and lead to devastating economic insecurity. Basic employment protections for transgender people provide a crucial foundation for dignified, economically secure lives. Employment should be based on one’s skills and ability to perform a job. No one deserves to be unemployed or fired because of their gender identity or expression.

Those who enjoy making life miserable for transgender citizens will argue that employment nondiscrimination laws deprive them of their rights, they should have the freedom to discriminate. If we lived in a row of caves along a river canyon somewhere, hunting and gathering and beating drums at night, then I'd say sure, go ahead, the big guy can force the little guy to do whatever the big guy wants him to do. Civilization though requires a little more of us as participants. It is a difficult corner to turn, and I see it is almost impossible for some people, but civilization requires that we show at least superficial respect to our fellow citizens. You don't have to like them, you don't have to approve of them, you don't even have to say nice things about them, but in this country we grant people the liberty to pursue happiness, whether you like it or not. This survey demonstrates why it is time to guarantee full civil rights for transgender Americans.