Transgender Job Seekers Face Uphill Battle
Found this interesting article on job discrimination on-line.
I wonder how many of the folks here have had similar experiences, or perhaps have given up the hunt for a job. It seems at least from some blogs here that some folk have not suffered the same fate.
Any thoughts.
Link
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/02/26/transgender-job-sear...
RAMI
Comments
I'll admit...
I've been too scared to even try to find any part time minimum wage work while going to school and after getting fired from my last job.
I was fired from my last job for poor performance, which was real, but was due to increasing depression from the way I was being treated at the job due to coming out trans.
So at least in my case, this is a real thing.
And it did say it was merely "a higher incidence level" than other groups. There are still plenty who aren't facing discrimination... But there's those who are...
I'm getting pushed into a corner here though. I'm going to have to start applying for something I can do on nights, Sundays, and every other weekend. If such a thing even exists for an obvious transsexual in Toledo. I could MAYBE see finding work. MAYBE. But I'd have to take whatever damned hours were given to me and be thankful for it even if they made it impossible for me to go to school!
Abigail Drew.
Sadly you are mentioning the key words
'obvious transsexual'
By the time I formally transitioned I was very passable due to a lot of time on hormones and electrolysis done and voice training etc. I am also Chinese so less masculine facial features.
And I transitioned between jobs which can help prevent the harassment issue. I was not perfect when I started (one coworker I think guessed) the new job but it was good enough. Having good references is extremely important so I really recommend as much as possible to changeover under the radar as much as possible if you plan to transition between jobs. To a certain extent this is recommended also if one does not want to change jobs as by the time one formally goes full time, one is that much more passable.
Sadly the woman who was interviewed on AOL was not the most passable but nor is she the worst. Like it or not one plays by the rules of human nature and try to be more like the 'typical' female if one is to be accepted on a casual basis.
Kim
Rami, everybody here
and friends/family need to see the article.
May Your Light Forever Shine
I can identify
Unfortunately, I can identify with the lady in the CNN article you linked. About 8~9 years ago, when I formally started hormones and my RLT (excuse me, I mean RLE), I faced a lot of ridicule and humiliation at my job. It wasn't anything I could get proof of, so I had to bear it. (Sorry if I don't give details. I'm sure you will understand.) But it eventually became sooo bad that I decided to resign. And since I was between jobs, it was my target-of-opportunity to go for my operations.
After I recovered, I tried getting a job. I must have submitted around seventy applications, and gone to at least 20 interviews with nary a nibble. I wasn't sure if it was because of discrimination, but I suspect it was. Anyway, I was at the end of my rope, financially speaking, when I decided to change tacks and made up my mind to grab at any kind of job opportunity. I eventually landed a job as a cashier at a little restaurant uptown (talk about being overqualified...) at minimum wage, and I stayed there for about a month, which allowed me to keep my head above water financially, and to continue applying.
I then applied to a couple of companies, one of which was a big one that had strict policies about discrimination, and I eventually go a position there (pardon me if I don't say which one). It wasn't smooth sailing there at all, but it was light-years better than in my old job. But I was definitely under pressure to perform. At the beginning, everyday was a pressure-cooker day until I established myself there. (I eventually left that company as well - at about the end of 2008- but that's a different story)
Anyway, I guess it's hard to find acceptance for LGBT folk, including in the workplace. I guess I lucked out in that I got a job in my new company only after maybe six months of being in a professional limbo.
I suppose the only thing I took away from my experience was that it pays to research the company you are applying to, and see how strongly their anti-discrimination policies are, and if they have any LGBT folk on their staff.
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I agree, it is the luck of the draw
I went full time 22 years ago or so and LGBT advocacy, wasss that? Anti-discrimination? wasss that? FFS? Wasss that. One got by with what one got due to hormones for the most part. You get the idea.
I got hired by a major company and they wanted me because I was qualified for the job. And yes the fact I passed allow me to be evaluated by my job skills and not the T stuff.
Still, I got very very lucky.
Kim
Passing Privilege
I have been very blessed. When I committed myself to transition, I was a founder and Director of a private Mental Health Center in Denver so I wouldn't have worried about losing my job. However, I lost my health (heart failure/heart break) post divorce.By the time that I had regained sufficient strength to work, I had transitioned, moved to Florida and become involved with a really sweet "Gold Star" butch Lesbian.
When my Doc said go, I went immediately to the big box home improvement chain where I had worked part time in Colo. and was fairly quickly hired, sight unseen, as an out transsexual woman. Were there occasional problems? Of course, but very little. Most staff and customers had no idea that I was trans, only that I was Lesbian and in Ft. Lauderdale that was a plus.
After a couple of years I was recruited by an Inpatient Psych unit for LGBT folks. They loved me. I worked covering just about every unit in the hospital and again no one knew. All of this was helped by the fact that my I.D. matched me. After 5 years, I moved 300 miles north To Gainesville where again, I was hired by the first place I applied, a secure Psychiatric Hospital for Criminally Insane men. I outed myself to the woman in HR immediately and her response was magic,"Gee, I don't think that that is any of our business." Sometimes you've just got to love it.
My question has always been,"Why?".
I believe that the answer is simply that I pass. I am lucky in that I am an older woman and therefore nearly invisible anyway. I am small: 5'3", 121 lbs (160 cm. just under 9 stone), I have always been feminine in grace, interests, interpersonal styles etc and I have been told that I am cute. However, I also believe that my high energy level and positive enjoyment of life has helped.
I didn't earn any of this. It just is and I am so sad for my sisters to whom life is unkind and/or brutal. It was for me for much of my first 30 years. I actively involve myself politically to fight transphobia and discrimination and helped get trans folk included in our city's anti-discrimination laws.
Part of what has enabled my life is remembering that what others think of me is none of my business and part of it is the mutual support of my Trans and Lesbian communities. I include all of you in my sense of community and I thank all of you for who you are and what you do. I am here for you should you need me. [email protected]
Joani
I envy you!
I am so envious of you. I was always a small person, shorter even than you. As a boy, you can very well imagine the kind of life I had. Not a bed of roses, by any means. A beating or two a year (or maybe a dozen or so would be more accurate) was my life - a geeky, nerdy, smart-alecky four-eyed shrimp was the image people had of me.
I had to spend a bundle for my transition, as well as for my FFS and other operations and things, in order to pass. And, because of this, I had to survive for years teetering on the edge, financially, trying to pay off my enormous debts (which included school loans, actually).
I struggled with my outward femiminity, my fashion sense and style, for a long while, my personal interaction "style" with people - that it be really feminine, instead of "fake feminine."
Dealing with people as I "fine tuned" myself was difficult, and the people that knew me, like my family, my friends, my coworkers - they were never really on my side.
Everthing that I had achieved was hard to achieve. To say the least.
Passing for me is easier now. But it wasn't automatic. Getting to this point wasn't easy. To say the least.
Seems to me, you had it sooo much easier. All I can say is that I envy you. :-)
To read my stories in BCTS, click this link -
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To read my Family Girl Blogs, click this link -
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To read my old Working Girl Blogs, click this link -
http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/19261/working-girl-blogs
To read all of my blogs, click this link -
http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/bobbie-c
To see my profile and know more about me, click this link -
http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/user/bobbie-c