How Do Transgender People Suffer from Discrimination?
Workplace discrimination. As in all forms of employment discrimination, transgender people may experience bias during application, employment, promotion and/or termination. An employee may experience gender identity-based discrimination upon coming out as transgender, transitioning on the job, discovery of their birth sex or even mere suspicion of transgender status.
For example, suppose an individual named Mario interviews for a job. The interview goes well and he expects a call back from his prospective employer. However, upon reviewing Mario’s job history, the employer finds out that his former name was Maria and, being unfamiliar with the legal processes associated with changing one’s name and sex, the prospective employer suspects Mario of fraud. He then asks Mario invasive and illegal medical questions, says he thinks Mario is mentally ill and in the end, refuses to hire him.
Repeated instances of this kind of prejudice result in chronic unemployment and underemployment for many transgender people, especially those who do not pass well in their new gender.
According to a 2002 poll commissioned by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, 61 percent of Americans believe that the country needs laws to protect transgender people from discrimination. However, 57 percent incorrectly believe that transgender people already are legally protected from being fired because of their gender identity and expression. In fact, the vast majority of jurisdictions in America still lack legal prohibitions on gender identity discrimination in the workplace.
Hate violence. Transgender people are often targeted for hate violence based on their non-conformity with gender norms and/or their perceived sexual orientation. Hate crimes against transgender people tend to be particularly violent. Our best estimates indicate that one out of every 1,000 homicides in the U.S. is an anti-transgender hate crime. This estimation is based on data collected by the national organizers of the Transgender Day of Remembrance and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Organizers of the Transgender Day of Remembrance track the number of transgender people killed each year in hate-based attacks using media articles, community reports and other publically available data. By this count, they estimate that at least 15 transgender people are killed each year in hate-based attacks, although we believe the number to be higher based on transgender people’s common fear of going to the police and widespread misreporting. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates approximately 14,000 homicides in the country each year. Based on these figures, we can estimate that approximately one out of every 1000 homicides in the U.S. is an anti-transgender hate-based crime. [1]
In 2002, community activists commemorated the lives of 27 murdered transgender people in that year. [2]
However, many crimes against transgender people are not reported because of widespread doubts that state and local authorities will treat them with respect or investigate the crimes.
Even in cases where the crime is reported, police response is often inadequate. In the hate crime on which the film “Boys Don’t Cry” was based, 21-year-old Brandon Teena was raped and later killed by two friends after they discovered he was biologically female. Teena had been living as a male and preparing for gender-reassignment surgery when he moved to Falls City, Neb., and befriended John Lotter and Tom Nissen. Upon discovering that Teena was biologically female, Lotter and Nissen became enraged and raped and beat him. Teena reported the crime to the police, but Richardson County Sheriff Richard Laux, who referred to Teena as “it,” did not allow his deputies to arrest the two men. Five days latter, on Christmas Day 1993, Lotter and Nissen found Teena in a farmhouse where he was staying with a friend, Lisa Lambert. They shot and stabbed him to death, then killed Lambert – in front of her 9-month-old son – and Philip DeVine, another friend in the home. JoAnn Brandon, Teena’s mother, filed a civil suit against Laux, claiming that he was negligent in failing to arrest Lotter and Nissen immediately after the rape. The court found that the county was at least partially responsible for Teena’s death and characterized Laux’s behavior as “extreme and outrageous.” [3] (Omaha World-Herald, April 21, 2001; The Associated Press, Oct. 5, 2001; The New York Times, April 21, 2001; Chicago Tribune, April 21, 2001.)
In another apparent anti-transgender hate crime, Hugo Cesar “Bibi” Barajas was found dead in 2002 from multiple gunshot wounds near a Houston club that serves gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Barajas, who was anatomically male, was dressed as a woman at the time of the murder and was found in a halter top, blue jeans, silver high heels with straps and a woman’s wig. According to police, she was also wearing makeup. At the time of this writing, police were investigating the murder as a possible hate crime, but had no suspects, motives or witnesses. Since the murder, the Texas Gender Advocacy & Information Network and other national groups called for the state hate crimes law to be amended to include coverage for gender identity- or gender non-conformity-bias motivated crimes. The groups cited six other murders of transgender women in the Houston area since 1999. [4]
Transgender people are frequently mistrustful of local law enforcement authorities because they often lack training and understanding of transgender people. This lack of understanding illustrates the need for a federal backstop for state and local authorities, particularly in cases where the local law enforcement authorities exhibit intolerance or fail to investigate or prosecute cases of transgender hate crimes.
Sixty-eight percent of Americans believe that we need laws to protect against anti-transgender hate crimes, according to a poll commissioned by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in 2002.
Health care and other discrimination. Transgender people also frequently suffer discrimination in health care. For example, female-to-male transsexual Robert Eads of rural Georgia developed cervical cancer but could not find a doctor to treat him. Twenty simply refused. He eventually found one more than 130 miles from home, but by then, Eads’ partner said, it was “just too late.” He died in 1999. [5] Anti-transgender discrimination also occurs in housing, credit and public accommodations.
References:
1. Based on the FBI's "Uniform Crimes Reports, Crime in the United States 2008."
2. Daily Lobo, University of New Mexico, Nov. 21, 2002.
3. Omaha World-Herald, April 21, 2001; The Associated Press, Oct. 5, 2001; The New York Times, April 21, 2001; Chicago Tribune, April 21, 2001.
4. “Transgender Groups Call for Expansion of Texas Hate Crimes Act,” National Transgender Advocacy Coalition press release, http://www.ntac.org/pr/020210tx.html; Houston Voice, Feb. 13, and March 1, 2002; Texas Triangle, Feb. 1, 2002.
5. “All in the Family,” The Advocate, March 13, 2001; “Survivor too,” The Advocate, March 13, 2001.
