Jobs, Jobs, Jobs...

In today’s economy you hear it is all about jobs and how the unemployment rate is 8.2 percent unless you are transgender then it is over 13% and if you are trans and a minority it is even higher, if you are Black (26%), Latino (18%) and Multiracial (17%)*. Only 16 states and the District of Columbia provide employment protection for trans-people, in all the other states you can be fired for being transgender.

That leads me to an article in the Atlantic …

Transgender Rights in the Workplace Are Still Unclear
It's illegal to fire employees because of their sex. But switching genders can still cost people their jobs.
The Atlantic
By Julie Turkewitz
June 21, 2012

In fall 2007, Vandy Beth Glenn was a bill editor working beneath the gilded gold dome of the Georgia capitol building. For the past two years, she had been transitioning from life as a man to one as a woman, attending therapy, taking hormones, and often presenting as a woman in her liberal Decatur neighborhood. In her office, though, she was still presenting as a man, albeit a fractured one.

"It reached the point where I couldn't continue to do that anymore. It was more and more cumbersome to have one identity at home and a different identity at work, when you're not a superhero," said Glenn, a former Navy officer. "So I informed my boss of my transition."

Like many other trans-people she was fired and has been unable to find a job. As a result she is living off of her life savings. Even with non-discrimination laws, it is still very hard to find a job if you are trans, they have a thousand reasons that they can use to explain why they didn’t hire you or they just sorry the job opening was just filled.

Early on when we were trying to pass the Connecticut gender inclusive anti-discrimination law many of the legislators thought that we were covered by the sexual orientation laws and we had to educate them that we were not covered by the law The article points out that this just was not a misunderstanding for legislators, only but also the general public.

Nine out of ten Americans mistakenly believe that there is a federal law that prohibits employers from firing someone because the individual is gay or transgender. But no such law exists, and this type of discrimination is legal in the majority of states.

But this is all changing slowly; there have been a number of court cases that have ruled the we are covered under various federal laws, including the Civil Rights Act Title VII and the 14th Amendment…

For years, it's been unclear if transgender people are protected under Title VII provisions that bar discrimination against people based on sex. That ambiguity has left the nation's approximately 700,000 transgender people in legal limbo, relying on the good graces of employers, landlords, restaurant employees, school principals, and others to permit them to live, work, learn and play like the rest of the country.

Then in December 2011, the 11th circuit court, which covers Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida, ruled in Glenn's case against Sewell Brumby: Title VII indeed outlaws discrimination against transgender workers. Similar decisions had been made in other circuits, but this was the most conservative court to do so.

This resulted in April where the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled in a 5-0 decision that an employer who discriminates against a transgender employee or job applicant because of the person’s gender identity is illegal sex discrimination based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

However, even with all these advances the court rulings have never been brought before the Supreme Court and the rulings could be overturned at any time. In addition, EEOC policy and other government policies can be easily changed if another president is elected. What we need to do is pass a gender inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and also we should be working toward adding gender identity and expression  and sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act.

But untimely it is as Vandy Beth Glenn said…

"I applaud anti-discrimination laws, and I'm glad when they pass, wherever they pass," she said. "But I think that the answer is most likely not going to be from legislation or the court, it's just going to be a natural evolution of society. It's just going to get to a point where it won't occur to people to treat any class of people poorly."

It is through education that change comes about.

*2009 National Transgender Discrimination Survey