High costs of discriminationThis does not just apply to Massachusetts, in 2008 similar testimony here in Connecticut was giving by an anonymous person at the Judiciary Committee hearing for the gender inclusive anti-discrimination bill. She said that she was earning close six figures when she transitioned and she was fired when she told her boss that she was going to transition. She said that as a result of her being fired and unable to find a job because of discrimination, her children ended up on state assistance, having to go on food stamps, Husky and needed state assisted day care. In addition, she wrote that she had to move back in witfh her mother.
Worcester Telegram
By M.V. Lee Badgett and Jody L. Herman
May 11, 2011
Massachusetts’ failure to pass legislation prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and expression doesn’t just affect the approximately 33,000 transgender residents of our commonwealth — about enough to fill Fenway Park. Discrimination costs Massachusetts at least $3 million a year in higher social service expenditures and millions more in lost income taxes — about enough to pay for one-third of the state’s annual allocation to Quinsigamond Community College.
Consider the story of Diane DeLap, a transgender woman and resident of Massachusetts. Until 2008, when she became a casualty of the Great Recession, Diane had been a highly sought-after employee working in high tech. The Navy veteran took the unexpected time off from work as an opportunity to do something she’d long desired: transition from the gender she’d been born to into the one she’d always known she was. But once she started looking for work again, she was told by a recruiter that she was “unemployable” because her gender did not match the one in her history of employment. As her savings dwindled, Diane finally stripped down her résumé so that it emphasized clerical computer skills. She eventually found temporary office work earning approximately $20,000 a year — a steep cut from what she used to make in the high-tech industry. Her wife, meanwhile, was diagnosed with cancer and the couple began receiving health insurance coverage through MassHealth.
[…]
Our study, “The Costs of Employment Discrimination Against Transgender Residents of Massachusetts,” published this week by The Williams Institute, estimates that the state spends $3 million annually on public health insurance coverage for transgender state residents who would otherwise have private health insurance if not for employment discrimination. The state loses millions more when income taxes cannot be collected from people who would otherwise be gainfully employed. Employment discrimination costs the state additional monies when transgender people cannot support themselves and their families, and they turn to the commonwealth for social support services such as housing and fuel assistance programs.
The other article writes about the medical cost of discrimination.
Devastating effects of transgender discriminationThis is the result of discrimination, without the prospect of jobs there is only state assistance and homeless shelters to turn to.
Baltimore Sun
May 09, 2011
The estimated prevalence of HIV infection among male to female transgender Americans is between 14.7 percent and 27.7 percent, vastly higher than the general U.S. population. Routine bigotry drives many transgender persons toward drug use, homelessness and sex work. Doctors and nurses who lack gender sensitivity training unwittingly create emotional barriers that hinder accehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifss to much needed health care.
We need your help to end this discrimination; there is a bill (HB6599: An Act Concerning Discrimination) before the Connecticut legislature that will make it illegal to discriminate against trans-people that will be voted on in the next couple of days. Please call you legislators, there is strong opposition to the bill by the right wing conservatives. We need you to call your legislators and tell them to vote for this bill without any amendments. You can get more information here.
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