"Transgender? You're fired!" Article inside

[Hara_Juku Tgirl]

"Transgender? You're fired!"

Or worse—you may be murdered. Transgender people may face discrimination on the job, in housing, or even in trying to pee. Some turn to legal proceedings to establish their rights. Some never get the chance to fight back. Part 9 in The Advocate’s ongoing Transgender 101 series

By Joanne Herman

An Advocate.com exclusive posted July 28, 2006



Many Americans do not realize that in much of the country you can be fired just for being transgender. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, only 31% of Americans live in areas that explicitly ban discrimination based on gender identity and expression. For the other 69%, legal proceedings may be the only way you can establish your rights. This means that revealing your transgender status could have the same result as that experienced by Sarah Blanchette and Diane Shroer.

Sarah Blanchette was a computer programmer for Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. In March 2004 she informed her superiors that she would return from a two-week vacation presenting herself as female. St. Anselm College then fired her, stating in a letter, "As you know, you recently disclosed to senior college administration your transsexual status. Upon consideration, you are immediately relieved of your duties...." The Boston-based LGBT advocacy and legal group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (not to be confused with the LGBT national media watchdog GLAAD) filed a lawsuit against Saint Anselm on May 26, 2005, reaching a settlement early this year.

Diane Schroer was an Airborne Ranger–qualified Special Forces officer who completed more than 450 parachute jumps, received numerous decorations--including the Defense Superior Service Medal, and was handpicked to head up a classified national security operation. Shortly after retiring as a colonel after 25 years of distinguished service in the army, she accepted a job as a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress. She thought she'd found the perfect fit. But when Schroer told her future supervisor that she was in the process of a gender transition to female, the job offer was rescinded. The American Civil Li berties Union is now representing her in a lawsuit against the Library of Congress.

If you are transgender and believe that your industry, employer, or trade will not accept a transgender person, you might decide to leave your current position before disclosing your transgender status. But after disclosure you will likely run into another problem: It can be very difficult to find new employment as an “out” transgender person, especially if your presentation does not rigidly conform to the gender binary. You may end up settling for employment considerably below your capabilities for the sake of having a job. Or you may not find a job at all.

Of course, however rampant and chronic employment discrimination may be for the community, it pales in comparison to the gravest issue facing transgender people: hate crimes. One example was the murder of Gwen Araujo in California in 2002. Gwen was a sexually active teenager who had not disclosed her transgender status to some of her male sex partners. She was murdered by her companions after their forced inspection revealed her to be biologically male. In the ensuing trial the defendants tried to use the transgender version of the “gay panic” defense--that Gwen had deceived them and therefore deserved to be murdered. In the end, two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but the jury concluded that no hate crime was committed.

An estimated average of one transgender person every two weeks is murdered just for being transgender. Gwen Smith has recorded the known killings on her Remembering Our Dead Web p age at Gender.org. Every November 20 we in the transgender community honor the memory of our slain brothers and sisters in the solemn Transgender Day of Remembrance. Last year there were 305 TDOR events around the world, spanning 42 U.S. states and 11 countries on five continents.

As a trans person you may also face discrimination in your mundane everyday life, in areas such as housing, credit, and public accommodation. If your presentation does not rigidly conform to the gender binary, you may be harassed if you attempt to use either the men’s or the ladies’ bathroom. Self-deputized gender police (and sometimes, the actual law enforcement kind) stand ready to protect these sacred spaces. The Transgender Law Center’s recently released guide "Peeing in Peace" explains how this policing harms gender-nonconforming people and offers some suggestions to help.

Regardless of how you present, you may face discrimination just because administrators or employees know you are transgender. GLAD successfully mounted a challenge in which a transgender middle school student was disciplined for wearing gender-appropriate clothing, and another in which a loan applicant was told to go home and come back dressed in clothing that matched the gender on her identification.

Discrimination pops up in all kinds of places, including your tax return. Since you must have the authorization of mental health professionals to have sex-reassignment surgery, and because you must pay the full cost of the surgery because it is generally not covered by insurance, Rhiannon O'Donnabhain deducted the costs of her sex-reassignment surgery on her 2001 return, believing they surely qualified as “medically necessary.” Yet, upon audit, the IRS denied her deduction, deeming it “cosmetic.” GLAD has commenced litigation on her behalf in U.S. tax court.

I have mentioned some of GLAD’s transgender legal cases because they are most familiar to me from my position as the first transgender member of its board of directors. But in all fairness, organizations such as Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center have also achieved significant legal gains on behalf of trans people. It’s clearly going to take the work of all of these organizations and others, plus some significant legislation, before all of us gender-nonconforming people will be able to live our lives in peace.

SOURCE: http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid34806.asp
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I thought this article was pretty interesting worth sharing.

~Kisses.

HTG

[Smog Boy]

Thanks for sharing that one, H.

[Caleigh]

It's a horrible situation that I have lived through personally, losing a job of 14 years after telling my supervisor that I would be returning to work after seasonal shut-down as a woman. I'm very lucky in that I did find other work in my field, though a level down on the ladder.

[peggygee]

I don't think so!


You actually are afforded a plethora of protections as
a TG in the workplace.

Some of theses protections come from the government,
whether Federal, state, or local:

Federal Statutory Law

Federal law prohibits discrimination based on sex in
public employment.6 This law prohibits discrimination
based on sex stereotypes.7 Thus, if an LGBT person
is discriminated against for failure to conform to the
stereotypes about his or her gender, the employee should
have a viable claim under federal law.

First Amendment
Public employees also have invoked the First Amendment
to protect a right to “come out” publicly

Equal Protection
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from
purposefully discriminating against someone without
adequate justification on the ground that he or she
belongs to an identifiable class of people.

Additionally a number of states provide protection:

State Law Protections

The following states have specifically listed sexual
orientation in their law prohibiting discrimination against
public employees: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.


Transgender Employees
The following states prohibit gender identity discrimination
against public employees: California, Illinois, Kentucky,
Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and
Rhode Island (and by court or administrative rulings
in Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, New York and Vermont). Also, transgender
employees who suffer discrimination often may invoke
laws against sex discrimination in employment.


Now, if you live in one of the states or cities that doesn't
provide you protection, many times if you are in a union,
you may receive protection through them.

Union Protections

Union contracts that include sexual orientation and gender
identity in their non-discrimination clause provide expanded
protections for LGBT employees. If a contract lacks these
protections, LGBT members and allies should try to get involved
in the negotiations process and advocate for these additions
in the next contract.

Some of the afore-mentioned applies to employees of the
government, but in many cases the courts have extended
these protection to private employees.

The above is excerpted from:

http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/i...ml?record=1871


http://www.glad.org/


http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/i...ml?record=1493

http://www.hrc.org/Template.cfm?Sect...ontentID=31022

http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/i...ecord?record=4

[wombat33]

It's a horrible situation that I have lived through personally, losing a job of 14 years after telling my supervisor that I would be returning to work after seasonal shut-down as a woman. I'm very lucky in that I did find other work in my field, though a level down on the ladder.

CAN'T YOU WIN THE BIGGEST LAWSUIT EVER FOR THAT???

[Alison Faraday]

Well..

Take hormones until people start calling you Miss and keep on looking at you funny, and you're cutting extra holes in your belt and your clothes hang off you. Formally transition. Get a few months wages out of your current employment before they fire you for leaving at 4:59 on a daily basis for the last 3-years (or something equally daft). Wait for friends to stop talking to you and the word CUNT to be written on the side of your car and it's wingmirrors repeatedly kicked off. Go homeless for 6-months and live off the state in some YMCA shithole where everyone grunts at each other inbetween their heroin fix. Enjoy repeated SMS text messages telling you what a freak you are (presumably from people you knew since no one else has your number). At least other people think you're really popular to be getting so many texts.

Then.. Move, disappear, start afresh. Lie your arse off on your CV. Materialise several spurious non existant Internet companies (with fancy websites and contact details). Write your own job references.

Stealth.

On the whole I haven't had it too bad. In the early years it was hell on this earth, but in the later years I never get read and have never had a problem. A young Chinese kid of about 4 or 5 in a takeaway restuarant once asked me if I was a man or a woman so I pushed him off the counter and that shut him up. Any other looks I get (usually from big fat heffers scoffing hamburgers in town centres) I just make chomp-chomp-I-can't-stop-eating-gestures at, by which point they either threaten to kill me inbetween mouthfuls, or waddle in my direction like something out of the hit film, I'm-so-fat-that-I-can't-walk (and I have slow metabolism).

Being transsexual isn't without dangers agreed, but if I'm going to get abused I'd much rather it be because I've just told some bloke that he could have done much better, while pointing at his fat wife and ugly children.

As for laws protecting transsexuals, they're almost not worth the paper they're printed on. So few solicitors will touch transsexual cases, and without a solicitor in the firstplace you're kind of screwed before you even begin.

Best advice is to just disappear and fit into society rather than change it. Sad but true. And ironic too. Equal rights for all, as long as you don't interfere with anyone else's rights. Their rights to not have their delicate minds clouded with such issues as, "Am I a nice person," or, "Should I have to worry about other people's feelings."

Figure that lot out and you'll be onto a winner.

[wombat33]

Well..

Take hormones until people start calling you Miss and keep on looking at you funny, and you're cutting extra holes in your belt and your clothes hang off you. Formally transition. Get a few months wages out of your current employment before they fire you for leaving at 4:59 on a daily basis for the last 3-years (or something equally daft). Wait for friends to stop talking to you and the word CUNT to be written on the side of your car and it's wingmirrors repeatedly kicked off. Go homeless for 6-months and live off the state in some YMCA shithole where everyone grunts at each other inbetween their heroin fix. Enjoy repeated SMS text messages telling you what a freak you are (presumably from people you knew since no one else has your number). At least other people think you're really popular to be getting so many texts.

Then.. Move, disappear, start afresh. Lie your arse off on your CV. Materialise several spurious non existant Internet companies (with fancy websites and contact details). Write your own job references.

Stealth.

On the whole I haven't had it too bad. In the early years it was hell on this earth, but in the later years I never get read and have never had a problem. A young Chinese kid of about 4 or 5 in a takeaway restuarant once asked me if I was a man or a woman so I pushed him off the counter and that shut him up. Any other looks I get (usually from big fat heffers scoffing hamburgers in town centres) I just make chomp-chomp-I-can't-stop-eating-gestures at, by which point they either threaten to kill me inbetween mouthfuls, or waddle in my direction like something out of the hit film, I'm-so-fat-that-I-can't-walk (and I have slow metabolism).

Being transsexual isn't without dangers agreed, but if I'm going to get abused I'd much rather it be because I've just told some bloke that he could have done much better, while pointing at his fat wife and ugly children.

As for laws protecting transsexuals, they're almost not worth the paper they're printed on. So few solicitors will touch transsexual cases, and without a solicitor in the firstplace you're kind of screwed before you even begin.

Best advice is to just disappear and fit into society rather than change it. Sad but true. And ironic too. Equal rights for all, as long as you don't interfere with anyone else's rights. Their rights to not have their delicate minds clouded with such issues as, "Am I a nice person," or, "Should I have to worry about other people's feelings."


Interesting thoughts, and some must be very true. But I say.............

BE THE ONE WHO CHANGES IT ALL...............GET A GOOD LAWYER............WIN...............THEN SIGN THE RIGHTS TO YOUR STORY TO A MOVIE COMPANY!!!!!

YOU DESERVE IT
Figure that lot out and you'll be onto a winner.

[Hara_Juku Tgirl]

It's a horrible situation that I have lived through personally, losing a job of 14 years after telling my supervisor that I would be returning to work after seasonal shut-down as a woman. I'm very lucky in that I did find other work in my field, though a level down on the ladder.

I agree. I went through similar experience back when I was in my early 20's. Its sorta a "catch 22"..damn if you told them firsthand (Get it over and done with) and damn if you dont. Its soo SAD really that most companies couldnt look past someones sexuality (when found out)!

~Kisses.

HTG

[Alison Faraday]

TO A MOVIE COMPANY!!!!!

Veerrry funny that you should say that... I'm doing odd little bits for the *edited out*. It's bloody cold spending all day standing about to say like 1 sentence, but yayyyy, "That's me, me on television, look look there there." "....Pound of apples please."

Shuts up and goes off to look at the top transsexuals on here for just enough jealously to go to the gym tomorrow.

[Caleigh]

CAN'T YOU WIN THE BIGGEST LAWSUIT EVER FOR THAT???

Well, I was on an annual contract and they created a whole new hiring procedure for the new year (after they knew about my impending transition) and decided to restructure the whole dept. and my contract wasn't renewed. I could have created a stink but it would have meant sticking around in Toronto and I wanted to move to Montreal to be with my gf. I just moved on. I have skills, they don't leave you. Now I have a great job managing a rest/bar in Brooklyn.