Black and Transgender: A Double Burden
A recent report confirms that they face extreme discrimination and poverty.
by Kellee Terrell, The Root
"Can you imagine what it's like to see people you work with refuse to walk on the same side of the street with you or sit with you at lunch, or to be told that you are unhirable, just because you are a transgender man?" asks Kylar Broadus, an African-American lawyer and board member of the National Black Justice Coalition, a national black LGBT civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C.
Broadus, who was born a woman and transitioned into a man 17 years ago, has been passed over for jobs because of his gender identity. "I'm basically unemployable because I can't hide the transgender part of me. Most likely I am not getting hired once employers see that my Social Security card and school transcripts all have a female name," he says. "I am a human being who deserves the right to make a living like everyone else."
Broadus' experiences are not rare. The harsh reality is that whether they possess a J.D. or a GED, members of the African-American transgender community face severe discrimination, according to the recent study Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (pdf).The survey, the first of its kind, was a collaborationbetween the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Black Justice Coalition. It collected data from more than 6,500 transgender Americans and found that all transgender people face severe bias ranging from housing and health care to education and employment.
But when researchers took a deeper look at the discrimination that the black respondents faced (pdf) — all 381 of them — the data jumped out at them. "What was really poignant were these stark differences. In every case, black respondents fared worse than the nonblack respondents in the national survey," says Darlene Nipper, deputy executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "This is because black transgender people face anti-transgender bias coupled with structural and institutionalized racism."
