Trans adults are twice as likely to be unemployed as cis adults, according to a new review that examines the conditions that trans people face at work.
McKinsey Quarterly, a business magazine by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, published a study titled “Being Transgender at Work” last Wednesday. The article draws from a number of sources, including McKinsey’s previous research on The experiences of LGBTQ+ workers, research from UCLA’s Williams Institute, and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), to shine light on the general state of affairs for trans workers in 2021.
In addition to finding that trans workers being more likely to be unemployed, the study found that even employed trans people are more likely to experience precarity. According to the report, BRFSS data indicates that 1.7 times as many trans people reported being recently out of work compared to cis people. 42% more trans people reported working part-time as compared to cis respondents, meaning that they were less likely to be eligible for benefits that are available to full-time workers, such as healthcare.
“Both the scarcity and the precarity of transgender employment can lead to feelings of loneliness, instability, and alienation from the rest of the workforce,” the article reads.
McKinsey’s own survey data found that trans people are 2.4 times more likely to work in the food or retail industries, where jobs are more likely to pay the minimum wage, or less for tipped positions. Accordingly, the average annual household income of a trans adult is about $17,000 less than that of a cis adult. Those differences only grow more dire when additional factors of marginalization are taken into account, with 75% of Native American trans people and 43% of Hispanic trans people making less than $25,000 annually.
The study also notes that these inequities were not necessarily “solved” with factors like college education, either. Trans respondents to McKinsey’s survey were 1.7 times less likely to have a college degree than cis people, and those who had college degrees were still more likely (26%) to earn $50,000 or less compared to cis college graduates (19%).
The job hunting process is weighted against trans people from the start, as the article notes. Trans applicants may have to expend “mental and psychological energy toward masking themselves in a way that cisgender job applicants don’t need to do,” with 50% of trans survey respondents reporting that they felt they could not be their full selves during the application process. Only 33% of cis respondents reported the same.
Because of this, trans workers are also more likely to report feeling as though certain industries are off-limits to them because of their gender identity. Trans workers reported being concerned about their safety, their ability to bring their “full self to work,” and a lack of other trans and gender-nonconforming workers as some of the reasons why they might feel as though a certain field of employment is unsafe for them.
That feeling of alienation, however, doesn’t disappear when trans people are hired. Trans people are twice as likely as cis people to feel as though they’re the only person “like them” in the room, and only 32% of trans people stated that they felt comfortable being fully out at work. Some workers had no choice in the matter though, with “more than one fifth” of trans respondents stating that they were outed or physically unable to hide their identity.
That lack of support might also be why trans workers were generally pessimistic about upward mobility in their jobs. 36% of trans respondents expressed a belief that their gender identity would affect their ability to be promoted, compared to only 21% of cis respondents. 86% of trans respondents also said that they didn’t see leaders in their workplaces who looked like them.
“In a previous job at a queer organization, I assumed I was going to have a good time,” one 33-year-old nonbinary survey respondent said. “On the front lines, you saw more diversity: people of color, gender diversity, intersectionality. But the more you got into leadership, [the more] it was a bunch of thin, white, cis gay men.”
To solve some of these inequities, the article recommends improving recruitment processes. That includes sponsoring skills-based trainings for trans community groups, participating in career fairs for the trans community, and proactively communicating about benefits of interest to trans people. To that end, the article also recommends including more trans-affirming benefits, such as strong mental healthcare support and coverage for transition-related medical procedures.
The article additionally recommends crafting trans-inclusive policies, such as reviewing company dress codes and offering diversity training to ensure cultural competency. Lastly, it recommends signaling an inclusive culture without necessarily forcing trans people to out themselves, by allowing applicants to use pronouns beyond “he” and “she,” implementing gender neutral bathrooms, and acknowledging days such as Trans Day of Visibility and Trans Awareness Week.
“While there is much to be proud of in the workplace advances of the LGBTQ+ community over the past decade, true progress cannot be realized unless it includes every letter of the abbreviation,” the article reads. “When employers better understand the challenges that transgender people face, they can knock those barriers down.”
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