TransLife.net Transgender 101 - Political

Discrimination is felt by many groups of people in society. Transgendered people seem to experience quite a bit more than the average person. Due to the lack of legal protections mentioned in the previous section, discrimination is the biggest problem faced by the transgender community.

The biggest form of discrimination faced by the community is employment discrimination. Trans people face a 70% unemployment rate. That's a big difference from the national unemployment rate. Despite qualifications that may even surpass the competition like college bachelors and mastors degrees, transgendered people continually are denied jobs simply for their status. Many people are clearly visually transgendered, and that definitely works against them. Unfortunately, most lawyers are unwilling to take up cases of transgender discrimination either. So there isn't much that can be done.

Another type of discrimination faced is housing discrimination. It can be very difficult to find a landlord that's willing to rent to a transgender in some places. Many are forced to live in very poor housing if they can find housing at all. Due to housing and employment discrimination, many turn to the pornography industry to make enough money to continue transitioning or even just to survive. This is known as "Survival Sex" and is unfortunately too common. This is where a lot of the transsexual pornography comes from.

Insurance companies are terrible when it comes to transgender anything. Many hormone regimens are not covered. Some companies have explicit clauses that say anything transgender is not covered. Sex reassignment surgery is rarely covered if ever. Usually it's classified as "elective", "experimental", "investigational", "cosmetic", or otherwise. This classification happens despite the fact that the surgery has been around for 50 years and is considered medically necessary. With that, it's almost a complete waste to even have medical insurance as a transgendered individual.

With all of the discrimination faced by the transgender community, life is almost like a catch-22. However, discrimination and fear can be fought with knowledge. Let's hope that more education will eventually lead to more equality.