Transgender Employment Experiences Quotes

“Schroer filed a Title VII sex discrimination lawsuit and in 2008, the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia handed down a landmark decision in her favor.”
― Kyla Bender-Baird, Transgender Employment Experiences: Gendered Perceptions and the Law

“While society perpetuates the norm that sex determines gender, transgender individuals turn this theory on its head. Transsexual people seeking sex reassignment surgeries are actually basing their sex on their gender identity. Gender serves as a signifier of sex and sexual orientation. Thus, when someone discriminates against a woman, it is rarely because she has a vagina or XX chromosomes—these are not readily apparent. The discrimination occurs because of the woman's public gender or gender performance. Sex discrimination is often truly a reaction to gender transgressions or gender non-conformity as defined by U.S. society.”
― Kyla Bender-Baird, Transgender Employment Experiences: Gendered Perceptions and the Law

“Instead, “the primary purpose of modern disability antidiscrimination laws is to recognize the social roots of discrimination.”8 The ADA covers not only individuals with a mental or physical impairment, but also those who are regarded as or assumed to have such an impairment that affects their ability to do their job based on some outward difference.9 It is, thus, the “prejudice, hostility, and misunderstandings of others about their health conditions” that impairs some individuals.10 Finally, according to Levi and Klein, “transgender people are often substantially limited not as any inherent result of the condition, but as a result of the negative attitudes of others.”11 Levi and Klein compare transgender identities to other impairments like severe burn scars that provoke discomfort in others. This discomfort causes a negative attitude that affects transgender employees' ability to do their work, similar to a hostile environment in sexual harassment law. Another manifestation of this discrimination is a manager refusing to allow a transgender employee to work with customers or clients out of fear of their reaction. According”
― Kyla Bender-Baird, Transgender Employment Experiences: Gendered Perceptions and the Law

“Instead, theories of gender freedom, self-determination, and fluidity allow transgender people to express their gender non-conforming identities freely and fully.10”
― Kyla Bender-Baird, Transgender Employment Experiences: Gendered Perceptions and the Law

“By living openly as transgender, neither men nor women but some combination or third option, people are reclaiming their identities and existing outside the binary.”
― Kyla Bender-Baird, Transgender Employment Experiences: Gendered Perceptions and the Law

“transitioning on the job is beneficial to both the employee and employer: the employee benefits from job stability, which helps with the costs of transitioning, and the employer benefits from a highly motivated employee who is likely to become more productive after transition is completed.”
― Kyla Bender-Baird, Transgender Employment Experiences: Gendered Perceptions and the Law