On Trans Awareness: Homelessness

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According to a study done by The National Center for Transgender Equality, 1 in 5 transgender individuals will have experienced homelessness at one point or another.

“Why?” you may ask.

Well…

It starts early on in our youth. We come out to our families, putting faith in the comfort and acceptance they have given us, and are promptly let down. They threaten us, tell us if we don’t conform to their idea of our gender that we will no longer have a place to stay under their roof. Some of us do try to hide, but it is impossible for us to change who we are. Impossible to keep the cracking facade of a happy cis girl or boy, when we are crumbling under the dysphoria. So, we are forced onto the streets. We attempt to take residency in shelters. Some shelters deny us. Some pretend to accept us, only to force us into gendered sleeping spaces and gendered facilities each of which are based upon outdated documents. Documents that you as a youth have no means in which to update. Your signature not legal, your finances non-existent. “The documents say (this gender) so you have to be with (that gender)”  Then there are the other patrons themselves. They spew slurs, threats, and general misinformation. They harass and physically harm you, and the shelter personnel have placed you so far in the complex that you can’t go to their guards for help. At the end of it all, the shelter can’t even provide you with the resources you need to get help for your situation. In the meantime, you try hard to find a real place to stay. You look at rooms for rent, and fill out their applications using the deadname that twists your stomach. They call back with rejections, whether it be due to complications with previous tenancy (because the only tenants you’ve ever known are the transphobic family that chose to discard you) or because they themselves partake in gender discrimination. You’ll search and search, and maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe you’ll find a place that accepts you. You’ll enter the room, happy to have a roof, only to realize that this place isn’t liveable. There’s mold, vermin, cracks that line the walls. Or maybe it is livable, but a few months later you receive an eviction notice, and the whole cycle starts again.

On Trans Awareness: Employment Discrimination

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In a world that prioritizes cis comfort, it’s hard to find a work environment that will treat a trans person with respect. You are constantly faced with a customer base that will scream at, belittle, and act violently toward you, and the people you work with will often not defend you and may even continue the abuse you experience. They’ll misgender you, use your deadname and the incorrect pronouns. They’ll mock you, “Well I identify as an Attack Helicopter,” or outright deny, “Pronouns are a liberal myth, you’re just confused.” They won’t accommodate for any of your needs. The uniforms are gendered, and you’re forced into an attire that doesn’t match you. Gender-neutral facilities are a rarity, and you have to choose which restroom will be less hostile. Pronouns are not used in introductions nor presented on the tags worn, further stigmatizing their existence. We ask, and we ask, but our voices don’t mean much to the cis management (because trans people are almost always denied promotions to positions of power due to gender discrimination from their supervisors) who continuously cater to their mostly cis customer base.

But that’s even assuming you get hired in the first place. 

The struggles start with just applying for a position. They ask for your gender, but often don’t include options outside the binary (male, female) forcing non-binary people to choose between intense dysphoria or a label that mismatches your presentation, putting your safety at risk. They ask for your legal name, but not your preferred name (and why don’t they, plenty of people use nicknames or pen-names, why not include the line) and if you haven’t changed your name (most likely due to finances because, you know, you don’t have a job) then you’re forced to use a name that doesn’t represent you. This especially affects you later when you get the interview. They see you, hear you; a person who “dresses strangely” or who “has a weird voice”. They meet you and realize that you don’t match the name given, and they think you’ve lied to them and they toss your application out the window without another thought, because why would they want to challenge their own assumptions. And so, you move on to the next place, and the next, and the next. You get rejected, over and over again, and always for the same reasons. Because you’re Trans, and “Trans isn’t normal.”