No Match, No Job, No Surgery

[Marti Abernathey]

Maybe it was my naiveté, but I always thought when I got my documentation changed, I transitioned, and was passable, that I'd be able to live the nice normal life I did before transition. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Recently I was interviewed a few times and offered a job... and then I got that dreaded call.

"Marti, we were doing our normal background check and we have a problem. We keep getting a rejection with your gender."

I had to tell my potential future employer that I am a pre-operative transsexual. In this circumstance, I was lucky. I am a skilled worker and the HR person that I was dealing with had family that was transgender. Had not both those things been in my favor, I'd probably still be unemployed.

There's been talk about repealing Title II of the REAL ID Act, but so far there hasn't been a lot of movement. As it stands now, you can have all your documentation changed but one call to the Social Security Administration will reveal your transgender status. This is a form of ghettoization that subjects transgender employees to humiliation and exposes them to discrimination. For many transgender people, this is part of an ugly cycle of workplace discrimination that is almost impossible to prove (that being discrimination in the hiring process). This discrimination leads to increased rates of unemployment or under-employment. Unemployment/under-employment can lead to decreased health care and an increase in risky behavior (especially "pumping" silicone and black market hormones). Because the Social Security Administration requires sexual/gender reassignment surgery (GRS/SRS) to change a gender marker, this also mandates surgery for anyone who wants consistency in their documentation.

In many instances this unemployment/under-employment causes transgender people to not be able to afford the very surgeries that will fulfill the SSA's requirements. This vicious cycle of poverty forces many transwomen into pornography or sex work, in order to pay for the required surgeries and therapy.

In the end, there are very few reasons for an employer to know what genitals you possess. Until this section of the REAL ID Act is repealed, transgender people will continue to have skyrocketing numbers of unemployment, HIV/AIDS exposure, and poverty. Gender shouldn't ever be allowed to be used as a weapon of discrimination and oppression.

cross posted from Transadvocate.com

[James Owen Limbach]

Marti-
Congratulations on getting the job! Sucks that you had to get outed, though.

I am one of those unemployed/underemployed transpeople... in my case, I look pretty gender queer and kinda have trouble passing sometimes as either sex. This is because I don't have any health care so haven't been taking hormones at all... I don't want to go to a "free" hormone clinic because I can't afford surgery and fear I will just be less passable...
Anyway, all this is to say that I feel like my 2 YEAR search for any kind of full-time work has been primarily stuck because of my gender ambiguity. I feel like I have to wear a dress to my next interview just to have a chance. Actually, the only job I DID manage to get, 2 years ago (one that gives me about 9 hours a week) I got by dressing up femme for the interview, and using my birth name.

Do you have any links to or ideas about what we can do about these background checks, etc.? So sick of being treated like I deserve nothing but homelessness and starvation.

[Vanessa Edwards Foster]

Thanks for the post Marti. In a sense, it's similar (though different context) to one I put on in 2004 when I got outed by a Google Search. It's likely what's behind my joblessness since Halloween now (I just don't get the second call thing). 2002 was my last permanent job, and now even the temp jobs are non-existent. No money means no HRT either. I saw it coming in 2004 and have still been milking that one last 90 day prescription since (getting close to the end). Don't know where it ends.

So, isn't it great all the progress that's being made on marriage? And maybe there'll be more "respected" "out" gays hired into the Obama White House and cabinet, hmm? We're all doing just fine ....

[Mark Daniel Snyder]

Didn't you know gay marriage prevents queer youth suicide and trans discrimination? get with it ;)

[JKC]

Gay Marriage has nothing to do whatsoever with Transsexual issues. We are NOT gay just because we have or are in the process of changing sexes. I'm (now) a heterosexual female. Although I support most gay rights issues, they have nothing to do with me or my life..Jen

[Patrick]

Federal courts ruled last year that it is sex discrimination to offer someone a job only to rescind that offer because the candidate has changed gender or plans to change gender: http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/transgender/36872prs20080919.html. If that ever happens to you, contact your local LGBT legal advocacy group, the ACLU, or the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.

[Marti Abernathey]

Patrick, that's all well and good, but typically (as in my case) there wasn't an offer before the SS check.

[Patrick]

I see. I had the impression that you had already been offered the job.

[Mark Daniel Snyder]

Jen - I was being sarcastic ;)