Transphobia often gets discussed as personal attitudes or explicit anti-trans policies, but the wider cis world often doesn’t see or understand the structural transphobia that impacts our lives. A big one that is impacting me again: discontinuities.
When we transition, our life course, narratives, and social network experience many different discontinuities. An area where this can have big material consequences is in a professional or academic career.
When applying to a job or a university, there is an assumption that a person can list the places with their relevant experience and then those people can be contacted and asked about the person. Well, if your name has changed, as well as your gender identity and presentation, there’s a whole host of problems this introduces. For example, I can list one of the places I worked or went to school before transition, but then I also have to out myself as trans and give my deadname to the place I’m applying to if they might reach out to check if I worked or graduated from there. Additionally, that then outs me to those people from the past as trans, who may be transphobic and give me a bad reference.
Additionally, a lot of us face transphobia after coming out and may be more likely to be laid off or fired as a result. So then one of our only potential references that knows us by our current name and identity may be much less likely to give us a good recommendation. We’re basically put at the whims of those that employ us in ways that creates extra layers of intimidation and pressure, and may lead to us putting up with transphobia or worse due to that precarity.
In my experience, I went from having a stellar resume that demonstrated 15+ years of experience with lots of recommendations and references to my resume looking either a lot like someone who only has 1 or 2 years of experience or I have to out myself and also share the ways I’ve been mistreated since transition. All of which makes a potential employer hesitant to hire us.
There is a reason why there is a trans wage gap that is bigger than most other wage gaps, and why a fuck ton of us have to turn to sex work to pay the bills.