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
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gender transition to female, the job offer was rescinded.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 Liberties 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.
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Herman is the first transgender member of the
boards of the Point Foundation (a scholarship lifeline
for LGBT students) and of Gay and Lesbian
Advocates and Defenders, the New England LGBT
legal rights organization that helped bring marriage
equality to Massachusetts. She is also a member of
the advisory board of the National Center for
Transgender Equality. Find more information about these
organizations at ThePointFoundation.org, GLAD.org, and NCTEquality.org.