Injustice at Every Turn
Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey was released on February 3rd. Pieces of this report have come out over the past several months (posted about here and on Bird of Paradox, as well as likely many other locations). This is, however, the full 220-page report, which is filled with some depressing statistics.
The Advocate has posted a brief rundown of the report:
- Respondents were four times more likely to live in extreme poverty, with incomes lower than $10,000
- Respondents were twice as likely to be unemployed
- One in four reported being fired for their gender identity or expression
- Half said they experienced harassment or other mistreatment in the workplace
- One in five said they experienced homelessness because of their gender identity or expression
- 19% said they had been refused a home or apartment
- 19% said they had been refused health care
- 31% reported harassment or bullying by teachers
- 41% reported attempting suicide, compared to 1.6% for the general population
Additionally:
In category after category, the study showed that transgender people of color faced even more pronounced discrimination and higher negative outcomes; for example, African-American respondents reported unemployment levels at double the other respondents’, or four times the national average.
“The data really shows the compounding effects of racism combined with antitrans bias that combines to cause devastation and life-threatening discrimination for trans people of color,” said Mottet.
I am disappointed to note that there is no serious breakdown of how these numbers intersect with disability. 31% of the respondents indicated they had disabilities (categorized as physical, mental, or learning – national average is 20%), but the survey was perhaps not specific enough to match the CDC’s definition of a disability. 8% of the respondents received disability benefits.
I think this report largely covers the kinds of issues we’re facing as a community (or rather, as several overlapping communities). It finally gives us a focus on the concrete obstacles that trans people face, as well as how these obstacles differ on the basis of race. There is no rational objection to the idea that institutionalized cissexism is a real force that harms people on a daily basis.
Far more than the brain scans that Quinnae critiqued last week, this research has an immediate, practical, obvious purpose. Hopefully this data will translate into meaningful action.
I’ll need more time to digest the report before I’ll be able to say more about this.
Yup, livelihood is job 1. We’re very low on the ‘hierarchy of needs.’ This is a very disempowering place to be. Perhaps the most apropos alliances are with activists in the poverty arena. I advocate imposing a sort of ‘civil service’ norms on all hiring, including private. Sort of an enforced meritocracy in which demonstrably relevant filters such as skill tests or credential checks take precedence over social filters such as interviews, ‘networking,’ etc. Instead of long lists of factors that can’t be used in hiring decisions (race, sex, religion, height, weight, habilital differential, perceived immigration status, etc. etc. etc. etc.), how about very short lists of factors that can? And a firmly stated legal principle that such factors are ‘non-demographic’ in nature.
Lori
5 Feb 11 at 11:00 am
I was impressed by this report, impressed and moved. FINALLY we have the numbers to validate what we already knew.
One thing that shocked me was the statistics for discrimination in schools. I expected there to be a lot of regional variation. The fact that from California to New York to the Midwest the rate seemed to be hanging out at around sixty percent just floored me. Really made me think.
Asher
5 Feb 11 at 12:02 pm
[...] More reading: http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/18589/craig-ferguson-transmockery-and-the-reality-of-bias-in-new-report-injustice-at-every-turn http://metroweekly.com/poliglot/2011/02/cbss-craig-ferguson-sketch-moc.html Research news: Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey was released on February 3rd. Pieces of this report have come out over the past several month. This is, however, the full 220-page report, which is filled with some depressing statistics. (Questioning Transphobia) [...]
This week in Transgender news « Morwen Edhelwen
5 Feb 11 at 12:27 pm
Lori, enumerated categories in non-discrimination policies and laws are necessary, in part, because the facts bear out that “neutral” evaluations alone will not result in fair or proportionate hiring.
a human being will still look at the application, will still determine whether the grammar and syntax strikes them as not sufficiently midwest-American-English, whether the name on the application sounds insufficiently WASPy or else doesn’t match gender cues elsewhere (such as a resume showing attendance at a single-sex institution, or identification provided). and further, many types of jobs do require skills that aren’t very easy to test for in a quantitative, multiple-choice-question manner.
eliminating the categories will not solve the problem. though it may make dominant classes feel better to imagine that they no longer have to check themselves specifically on racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or ableism- having dominant classes feel better isn’t really the goal, I’d hope.
MHS
5 Feb 11 at 7:02 pm
In addition to what MHS said, there’s not a level playing field to begin with – even discounting all the other (incredibly important) issues, trans people are more likely to have been forced out of school, lost jobs, have long gaps of unemployment, etc.
There’s also “what is there the realistic potential to do?” and “what builds our collective strength to move on to further struggles?”. I don’t think there’s the realistic potential to enforce major changes in how businesses do hiring – and there’s already data that anti-discrimination laws don’t work for trans people, referring to the joblessness and pay statistics for trans people in San Francisco done in the last few years, and the pair testing done in New York City recently.
I see the most potential in two things, both of which would build our collective strength (and the collective strength of other groups that we obviously overlap with). The first is greater participation in unions – now, there’s definitely a critique to be made about the large unions (union management at a distance from workers and too eager to snuggle up to management, lack of rank and file decision making and influence), but the AFL-CIO already has Pride at Work to get unions to focus on LGBT issues (I have no idea how good they are on trans stuff in general), to work protection for sexual orientation and gender identity into collective bargaining agreements,and Pride at Work does do stuff for people outside AFL-CIO unions. Obviously union jobs are at a low – but a focus by trans people on rebuilding the labor movement could greatly improve our and other workers’ economic conditions.
The other thing, which is much more locally doable, are solidarity networks. Seattle Solidarity Network is a very successful example. I’m not suggesting that trans people should start their own, but that we should participate in already formed ones, and help start ones with others. For instance, there’s a lot of places where job and housing discrimination based on being trans is something employers and landlords feel they can easily get away with, and often do, but would look horrible if there was organized pressure publicizing what happened.
Ultimately, the only way we’re going to change the average economic circumstances of trans people is by an organized effort, and that not only needs to be as part of an organized effort of multiple groups of people as we’re a small and spread out community, but it should, not only because there are trans people who are part of all other groups, but also because it’s the right thing to do.
anarchafemme
6 Feb 11 at 2:48 am
OK, MHS, I see where you’re coming from. I wouldn’t suggest for a minute that “neutral” evaluations alone will not result in fair or proportionate hiring. I also make no claim that my college education is not a by-product of privilege, generational advantage, and other unearned perks. I would claim that there is no color-blind hiring without blind hiring, so I’m unabashedly in favor of the informational disempowerment of the HR establishment. The hiring process should come with specific informational blinders for HR. For example, 20-some years ago I was told by all the career counselor types that it was considered legally and ethically questionable, and in poor taste to boot, to include a photograph with a resume in all but a select few professions. In more recent years I’m seeing career advice segments on the local-teevee-news recommending people make YouTube resumes! This is serious loss of progress. My idea of a body of civil rights policy would call for a bilateral correction of the asymmetric informational relationship between business and worker, by not only giving less information to business, but more information to the working public, and the general public, such as:
* a proof-of-publication (of help wanted advertising) requirement for all filled openings (filled openings perhaps as evidenced in payroll tax forms). Hell, my name change came with a proof-of-publication requirement. Surely the public has more of a legitimate interest in accurate info about where the -actual- jobs are, than in information about my name history.
* PUBLICation (not just reporting) of payroll statistics, for example a histogram of salaries, and of course demographic statistics
* maybe even wholesale swaps of privacy for transparency such as income-as-matter-of-public-record.
Granted, demographic laundry lists are closer to being ‘politically feasible’ than extreme transparency measures, but for how long? They make an easy target for ridicule, and for mobilization of ‘grass roots’ reactionary opinion against ‘micromanagement’ or ‘political correctness’ or whatever the PR suits are framing it as nowadays. Perhaps extreme transparency will come to the workplace by unauthorized means, as seems to be the case in every asymmetry/disinformation matrix.
Lori
6 Feb 11 at 7:55 am
[...] Questioning Transphobia summarizes some of the findings: [...]
Bill C-389 on Gender Identity and Expression « Bakka's River
7 Feb 11 at 2:33 pm
[...] QT):Injustice at Every Turn http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=3611 // Share| AKPC_IDS += "2628,"; 0 Comments Leave A [...]
(From TBP):The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality study
7 Feb 11 at 3:57 pm
“I am disappointed to note that there is no serious breakdown of how these numbers intersect with disability.”
I encourage you to contact NCTE and make a request for help getting this information. Page 11 of the NTDS indicates that the data can be provided for further analysis. For instance, I do some trans suicide prevention work, and was able to get numbers for my state that are not in the report as far as I can tell doing a search for my state’s name. It seems to be a matter of this information being so huge, and the staff resources limited.
“…[T]he survey was perhaps not specific enough to match the CDC’s definition of a disability. 8% of the respondents received disability benefits.”
I wonder if part of the disparity is partly attributable to marginalized people lacking access to essential advocacy to pursue disability benefits.
But a good deal of the lack of detail does lie in the survey instrument. NTDS p.197 discuses the weakness of how the questions were asked, and offers suggestions for next time.
Tom
8 Feb 11 at 12:14 am
There’s just plain not a lot of information about how to get advocacy to pursue disability benefits in general.
I am not sure if I’d be able to make sense of data like that, but something to think about.
Lisa Harney
8 Feb 11 at 12:18 am
Lisa, I really encourage you to do as Tom suggests. I don’t know what your schedule is like but I’m sure that, given enough time, you would be able to make enough sense of the data to add something to the discourse.
Cindy Bourgeois
9 Feb 11 at 5:41 am
Lori- OK, I hear where you are coming from and I know a lot of compassionate, reasonable people who feel the same, who feel that eliminating all reference to difference in the employment application & interview process is the answer.
I do not agree that this is the main or only peg on which to hang the hope of truly just/equal employment practices. consider, for example, that many individuals in marginalized communities participate in political, service-oriented, or professional organizations that specifically mark us (on our resumes) as having a particular identity or being part of a particular group. the answer is not to eliminate those experiences, and the skills they’ve generated, from the resume so as to allow the reviewer to believe every resume is a straight/white/U.S.-born/non-trans/male. (that, btw, is what generally happens with “blind”, as you call it, application review- they revert to the default assumption, there’s no such thing in our consciousness as a raceless, genderless applicant).
so, too, a genderless-and-raceless policy would also prevent employers and industries from engaging in recruiting and professional development specifically geared at particular groups. yet, the “old boys’ networks” of white men would still continue grooming their own for success.
so I guess I do agree with you on increasing public access to knowledge… but not at all on the genderless/raceless thing being a good idea.
MHS
20 Feb 11 at 10:42 am
anarchafemme- fantastic comment… perhaps moreso with the goings-on in Wisconsin right now, and the present targeting of unions as a way to increase Republican prospects for 2012.
the issue of organization certainly puzzles and confounds me a bit, since even the broadest estimates of incidence of trans*ness still seem to leave transitioning or trans-identified people as a statistical minority much smaller than groups that have generally been successful at working against their systemic disempowerment. the individual calculus for whether someone will disclose for political reasons also seems different than other movements- it seems quite a high stakes proposition for any whose medical histories aren’t public knowledge. I could see how the intense stigma behind that is a big barrier to organization, and I wonder whether existing models of building political, social, and economic power are really applicable to this group.
MHS
20 Feb 11 at 10:52 am