Transjobless - 59% of SF Bay Area Trans community live in poverty

[Duncan Grant]

Here's an important read about the SF Bay Area transgender community. It details difficulties in securing full-time employment, economic inequality, discrimination and the limited job opportunities afforded trans people here in the Bay Area.

Through the efforts of local advocates, over a dozen local employers have agreed to participate in a job fair at the SF LGBT Community Center - details can be found at the end of the article.

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In the transgender community, to have full-time work is to be in the minority. In fact, a new survey of 194 trans people conducted by the Transgender Law Center (TLC), with support from the Guardian, found that only one out of every four respondents has a full-time job. Another 16 percent work part-time.

What's more, 59 percent of respondents reported an annual salary of less than $15,333. Only 4 percent reported making more than $61,200, which is about the median income in the Bay Area.

In other words, more than half of local transgender people live in poverty, and 96 percent earn less than the median income. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that 40 percent of those surveyed don't even have a bank account.

TLC doesn't claim the study is strictly scientific — all respondents were identified through trans organizations or outreach workers. But the data give a fairly good picture of how hard it is for transgender people to find and keep decent jobs, even in the city that is supposed to be most accepting of them.

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link: http://www.sfbg.com/40/24/cover_trans.html