I Don’t Go Along With All Of This.

To certain extent, I think one part is correct from my own observations.

LGBTQ+ consumers face financial discrimination that keeps them in a vicious cycle of hardship

A new survey from the Human Rights Campaign looks at the impact of discriminatory practices by banks, credit unions, and other financial services.

Fast Company

BY SHALENE GUPT

April 3, 2024

LGBTQ+ individuals face discrimination in the United States as their rights increasingly come under attack. Unsurprisingly, many LGBTQ+ adults are also struggling financially. They see a wage gap of 10%, earning 90 cents for each dollar that a non-LGBTQ+ adult earns. A new report from the Human Rights Campaign, in partnership with Community Marketing & Insights—an LGBTQ-focused research company—contains data from more than 1,800 LGBTQ+ adults on their financial health.

Here are the key findings:

• Overall, LGBTQ+ people are struggling financially: 48% of LGBTQ+ individuals and 60% of trans and nonbinary adults say they are struggling financially, compared to 27% of the general U.S. population.
• LGBTQ+ consumers face discrimination while accessing financial services: 30% of LGBTQ+ and 40% of trans and nonbinary respondents said they’ve been discriminated against while accessing financial services.
• Discrimination impacts financial health: 63% of LGBTQ+ adults who are not doing well financially say they’ve experienced financial services discrimination. By comparison, only 37% of LGBTQ+ adults who are doing well financially say they have experienced financial services discrimination.

My rebuttal:

• First, people cannot tell if someone is gay or lesbian.
• Second, most gays and lesbians do not have any children.
• Third, “… a wage gap of 10% …” that is nothing compared to the gap between men and women. According to Pew Research, “In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned …” and in another Pew Research study they found, “U.S., blacks in 2015 earned just 75% as much as whites in median hourly earnings …”

I said “to a certain extent” and that exception is us, the trans community. I am not a fan of “passing privilege” but what it affects wages, the better a trans person can pass than the better their earnings.

Those dollars and cents add up’: Full-time trans workers face a wage gap, poll finds

Trans and gender-nonconforming people are among the lowest paid LGBTQ+ full-time workers in the United States, a new snapshot poll shows.

19^th News

By Orion Rummler

January 28, 2022

Transgender and gender-nonconforming people are among the lowest paid LGBTQ+ people working full time in the United States, according to a snapshot poll by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and a California-based market research firm. 

The HRC found that trans men and nonbinary or gender-nonconforming people earn 70 cents for every dollar the typical worker earns, while trans women earn 60 cents to that dollar, based on responses from roughly 6,800 LGBTQ+ workers last spring.

“If that’s across the entire population, those dollars and cents add up,” said Spencer Watson, executive director at the Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research. 

The HRC believes the actual pay gap for trans and LGBTQ+ people is bigger because part-time jobs and work in underground economies were not considered. But the survey still offers a unique look at wage disparities that experts say have not been adequately researched.

I know of several trans people that just can’t find any work anywhere. I know a trans woman who had a Post PhD from Harvard with a professor who was a Nobel Prize winner, and she owned a business that catered to the Fortune 50 companies but once she transitioned she couldn’t find a job.

Yes, employment is one place where “Passing Privilege” matters.