Author: admin

Categories
Uncategorized

Isolation, COVID-19, and Transgender Seniors

By Jeremiah Ancheta

Nearly two years have passed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the world has seen some progress towards returning to the way things once were, various issues remain that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Particularly, the harmful effects of loneliness and isolation within the transgender community, especially transgender seniors (65 and older), in the U.S. and abroad. This issue, which has always existed, has been made worse by the pandemic. Here is a look at what has been done to address the issue and further measures to consider in the future.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 54 million senior citizens living in the United States; this accounts for 16.5% of the nation’s population. A report by the Williams Institute at UCLA notes that about 0.5% of seniors in the U.S. identify as transgender. However, this statistic only captures the seniors who openly identify as transgender, and it is probable that there are many more transgender seniors who have simply not been open about their identity. The number of seniors is expected to grow, with a projected 85.7 million seniors in the U.S. by 2050. 

A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that one fourth of seniors are considered socially isolated. Although loneliness and isolation in itself is troubling, there are also problematic health issues that arise from them.

Various studies have shown that senior folk who are isolated and suffer from loneliness are more at risk for debilitating health conditions. This includes issues such as dementia, heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, and even death. 

This issue was aggravated in recent times due to the COVID-19 pandemic which led to restrictions on family members seeing senior relatives in medical care settings. Even now in 2021, some restrictions are still in place that limit visits in some capacity.

The pandemic has also affected transgender seniors in a two-fold manner. As seniors, they face the same debilitating health conditions as the rest of the population. However, the pandemic has also affected access to resources that are vital to transgender health.

A 2020 article by the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry notes that “The COVID-19 pandemic has diminished [Transgender and Gender Non-Binary (TGNB)] individuals’ access to the critical emotional and instrumental social support networks that are vital to their well-being… With school and university closures, TGNB youth may be living at home with family members who are struggling to accept and understand, or who do not accept their identities. TGNB adults also have diminished access to supportive communities given the limited number of online and virtual resources for TGNB people.”

Unfortunately, an article by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center points out how “loneliness and social isolation are rarely considered or addressed in health and mental health care settings.” However, the article also points out that such risk factors are the most addressable. So what exactly can be done to address the problem?

Studies point out that loneliness and social isolation issues vary on a case-by-case basis. As a result, different individuals will require different forms of intervention. One such intervention involves cognitive components, by helping seniors change their mindset about their social situation. This method may involve cognitive behavioral theory or mindfulness meditation to modify their mindset. Another intervention involves increasing social support or social interactions through community programs.

Ultimately, an article by the BMC Public Health concludes that “future research should be aimed at discerning what intervention works for whom, in what particular context and how.” As such, Cloud Dancers is interested in promoting more research on loneliness and social isolation among seniors, especially within the transgender community, as well as bringing more visibility for transgender seniors.

Categories
Uncategorized

Trans* Survivors and the System of Violence

By Meghan Serceki

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a time to unite survivors of domestic violence, to highlight the organizations offering support, and to raise awareness of this pervasive and critical issue. Domestic violence can also be referred to as domestic abuse or intimate partner violence. This can take on many forms as abuse can be perpetrated physically, sexually, emotionally, economically, verbally, and more. The United Nations defines it broadly as “a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner.”

A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that compared to cisgender individuals, trans* individuals are twice as likely to experience intimate partner violence. Trans* is a term meant to be inclusive of all identities along the gender spectrum, and even though anyone can experience domestic abuse, those who identify as trans* are especially at risk. Besides this added vulnerability, though, these same individuals face exponentially more obstacles to getting help. Not only are there added complexities to the violence committed against them, but systemic inequities deny them certain protections when they speak out.

Abuse against trans* individuals is more prevalent than among cisgender people, and it also contains layers of transphobia, homophobia, heterosexism, transmisogyny, and threats of outing the partner’s identity. In a report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, a transgender woman recounts her ex-boyfriend threatening her life and telling her, “no one else would ever want a freak like me, that I’m not a real woman, and that I’m worthless.” In a world that perpetuates these negative views, abusers play on internalized stigma and insecurities in order to further control their partner.

Similarly, perpetrators may threaten to “out” their victim to friends, coworkers, or family members. Everyone deserves the right to share such intimate aspects of their identity with people of their choosing, under their own terms. People may feel like being out will devastate certain aspects of their lives, so such threats can be terrifying and real, making them feel trapped in the relationship.

Beyond this, the stigma around being trans* acts as yet another barrier to getting help. These people therefore not only have to deal with the stigma around being a victim of abuse, but they also have to face prejudice against their own gender identity. Even if their abuser is not threatening to out them or if they are already out, some individuals who are “passing” may fear that seeking help through organizations will require them to disclose their history.

All this converges into systemic inequities which deprive trans* individuals of the protections which do exist for survivors. Unfortunately, many of the organizations and programs that are readily available for abuse victims are not equipped to serve the trans* community. Some shelters do not recognize gender identities unless they have fully transitioned. A transgender woman recounts seeking help but being denied shelter because they still considered her male. Reaching out is a huge and difficult step in escaping an abusive environment, and having these negative experiences can prevent them from continuing their fight.

Another recourse available to survivors are protection orders. These may help create physical distance between partners, halt communication, and create a safe home environment among other things. However, the American Bar Association states that protection orders are often denied to LGBTQ individuals, and especially to trans* people. Different states have varying policies on this issue and hold different standards for what they consider a “domestic partnership,” especially in regards to LGBTQ relationships. In this way, the system is further stacked against the trans* community, and those in perilous situations may feel even more attacked, hopeless, and alone.

With the legalization of gay marriage, and increased understanding of what it means to be trans*, there is some improvement being made. But these are just the first steps in correcting a system of oppression and violence which has already damaged the lives of so many. We have to keep demanding change, to advocate for the people that need it, to support those who are seeking help, and to be the change we wish to see in the world.

Categories
Uncategorized

The Stigma of Seeking Help

By Meghan Serceki

Mental Health and Its Impacts

Conversations about depression, anxiety, and broader mental health concerns are becoming increasingly prevalent, especially as the pandemic continues to take a toll on our emotional well-being. Psychological conditions take many forms and vary in intensity from case to case, yet they are issues that touch all our lives — whether we undergo them ourselves or experience our loved ones coping with them.

Everyone may battle with their mental health regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality, or socioeconomic standing. However, LGBTQ individuals, particularly those who are transgender or gender-noncomforming (GNC), encounter them at significantly higher rates. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), approximately 40% of transgender and GNC adults have attempted suicide, compared to the general average of 5%, making them a particularly important group to support and include in these discussions.

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, but we as a society cannot afford to only address people’s mental health once it has gotten to the point of contemplation. Providing treatment during the early stages of mental ailments can quite literally be a matter of life and death. The RAND Corporation contends that the majority of people who have died by suicide have not received care from mental health professionals, and those without a history of substance abuse or previous attempts on their lives were less likely to have their symptoms addressed. So, what prevents people from seeking this help? And how can we, as a general population, help encourage the use of these resources?

Stigma Around Mental Health

Unfortunately, mental illness is extremely stigmatized in the United States, making people feel shame in asking for help. Canadian-born sociologist, social psychologist, and writer Erving Goffman described stigma as a “spoiled identity,” whether this identity is internally perceived or externally imposed on others. Many people share the false notion that individuals with a history of mental illness are inherently more dangerous when the vast majority of people struggling are nonviolent. Even in searching for synonyms for the term “mental illness,” words like “insanity,” “derangement,” and “lunacy” come up, all carrying negative connotations.

Because of these assumptions, many feel pressure to “pass” under stigmatization  — to hide their experiences or characteristics from others. “Passing” is a term common among the LGBTQ+ community as many feel stuck in the closet, so to speak. Hiding symptoms of depression, anxiety, or other mental disorders only adds to this stress, perceived loneliness, and feeling of hopelessness and worsens the condition from which it stems.

A scholar and professor of psychology, Dr. Patrick W. Corrigan explains that in trying to escape being associated with these negative misconceptions, people are likely to avoid treatment, to drop out of treatment, or to not adhere to treatment guidelines. All such impacts reduce the effectiveness and accessibility of these potentially life-saving interventions.

Combating this Challenge

One of the most efficient ways to counteract stigma is simply increasing contact between people openly dealing with psychological disorders and those not. If people are willing to share their stories and speak up about their internal battles, others might realize that mental illness is much more common than they may have thought, and that most people diagnosed with these conditions are perfectly normal and not at all dangerous. Obviously, this process requires some to make themselves vulnerable and to break from the mold of society’s expectations, but with more time and exposure doing so will become easier.

At the same time, education plays a vital role in moving this process forward. Awareness of the issue is necessary to understanding its impact, yet people must also know how to interact with and support those contending with mental health issues. Education of public officials and the relaying of factual information to combat stereotypes is necessary in doing so. This also takes some of the burden off the people sharing their stories; they may be open about their experiences without having to explain themselves to people or to guide them in their responses. Instead, professionals educated on mental health crises can help develop trainings and campaigns for the general public to better form their ideas of and reactions to those dealing with psychological issues. “Mental health” is very broad and complex, and there must be a solid and complete approach to portraying its forms and impacts.

Conclusion

There are major systemic issues which reduce the availability of mental healthcare and impede transgender access to the care that exists (see “Transgender Healthare in America”). Changing these requires comprehensive changes at the institutional and legislative levels and will not happen overnight. These may seem out of the control of individuals going about their day-to-day lives, but these are exactly the allies we need in this fight.

If more people recognize the reality of mental illness, its prevalence, its seriousness, and its effects on so many peaceful and kind human beings, we can raise our voices together to demand change and to fix these issues. 

If you or someone you know are in crisis, please refer to this website for a list of resources. You are not alone.

Categories
Uncategorized

The Importance of Claiming Identity

By Olivia Williams

Nestled in the arms of my long-term boyfriend, I felt a familiar feeling begin in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t just the fact that I was showing him a well-loved film for the first time. The movie, called Fried Green Tomatoes, follows the adventures of two female best friends and their adventures between the two World Wars, recounted by a woman in a nursing home. It was a familiar story to me and I was excited to let someone I love into a world that has welcomed me for so long. But as the story continued and the women got closer, I began to feel a longing for the kind of friendship that was portrayed on screen, just as I had every other time I had seen those characters. The understanding and love that was between the two girls in the movie was something that I desired deeply. 

At one point, about halfway through the movie, my boyfriend asked me to pause it and got up to use the bathroom, brushing a kiss against my cheek as he left the room. It was only in seeing this action mirrored on the screen in front of us several minutes later, feminine Ruth kissing rebellious Idgie on the cheek before diving into the lake before them, that I finally came to a realization. However much the 1991 film stresses the importance of friendship, the main female relationship shown is a romantic one. The longing this movie gave me for all these years was in fact a hidden seed that would sprout years later when I finally realized that I am bisexual. 

It was not that I was raised in a homophobic environment. My parents, both active liberals, instilled in me values of acceptance and open-mindedness from a young age. But for some reason, homosexuality seemed to be something that was for everyone else. I had always loved putting things in categories (which, ironically enough, would later lead to another realization: a diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and anything to do with the LGBTQ acronym was always a category that was separate from me. For me, the roles that I had in relation to the two main genders were clear. If they were male, I had three options: either being friends with them, being involved with them romantically, or not having them in my life. For the females, the options were narrowed to only two: friends or nothing. I spent years in high school and beyond wishing to emulate certain girls and lamenting the fact that I wasn’t closer friends with them, the same way I lusted after the friendship in Fried Green Tomatoes. 

Cameron, a non-binary friend of mine, had a similar experience in their own journey. For both of us, being queer was seen as a separate, almost less valid experience, for other, more brave, people. Being heterosexual “…is the engrained path,” explains Cameron, “and if you stray from it, it’s not the norm, it’s not the default.” In fact, experiences by people other than cisgendered heterosexuals were thought of as almost enthralling. “I barely knew what trans people was,” they explained to me, “but I had some sort of notion. I saw like a quick ad about it on TLC.” Much like my misguided categorization, Cameron felt that there were only two options: “I knew I wasn’t a guy, like I always knew that. So I was like, ‘Guess I’m a girl, like, that’s the other option.’” Just as I assumed my feelings towards girls were those of intense friendship, Cameron also misrepresented themselves in order to fit into the only two options that they believed they had. If they were a girl, the feelings that they were having towards girls must be homosexual ones, because they were presumably of the same gender. However, this, too, posed a problem. “I didn’t really know any gay people,” Cameron says. “I had no gay people in my life…I still didn’t really have a concept of it until I developed a crush on a girl in my class.” Ultimately, this led them to claiming the wrong identity for several years, coming out as lesbian to their private, all-girls Catholic high school. 

The main factor that changed Cameron’s worldview was graduating high school and participating in a theatre program, which ultimately exposed them to members of the LGBTQ community, including people who were non-binary. “I had non-binary friends before I came out [the second time]. That’s really how I came to the notion of it,” Cameron remarks. “I didn’t really know what that was before I had met them.” This resulted in the realization that not only are LGBTQ identities valid, but that they are unique, meaning that they span much farther than static categories that must be selected and stuck with. Perhaps, Cameron realized with time, queerness was even so flexible that it could include them, too. “And how I like really came to that realization was, you know, I’d be on-and-off thinking about it, and I was in bed with my girlfriend of a year at that point, and she’s half-asleep, and I just kind of said, like, ‘You know what? What if I’m non-binary?’” reflects Cameron. “…And saying it out loud for the first time just really solidified it and as soon as I said it I was like, ‘Yes. Absolutely. This fits.’” 

Even during our conversation, recounting our experiences to each other, we are doing exactly what Cameron did all those nights ago: affirming and accepting our identities, out loud, to the world. In a place where girls are assumed to be friends, where transgender people are a sight to gawk at on reality television, confidently saying who were are is the first step in accepting ourselves, which then invites acceptance from the world. Sharing in this way increases visibility to those who feel invisible, from high school kids who aren’t exactly sure what they’re feeling, all the way up to the Cloud Dancer Foundation’s founder, Robina Asti, who transitioned at the age of 50 and spent the rest of her life encouraging others to live their truths too. Claiming identity is the ultimate first step in any queer journey, and this is why I have created a series of articles speaking with several different queer subjects on their journeys, from fighting internalized homophobia to defending their identity against societal oppression, and ending with a focus on the positive queer future. Cameron says it best, summing up not only my goal but the goal of the Cloud Dancers’ Foundation as a whole: “[Being represented] just constantly affirms it. It just feels like, ‘This is real. I’m not making it up. I’m not being overdramatic.’” By sharing queer stories like I hope to do in this series, I will make the invisible visible, which was, ultimately, Robina Asti’s biggest goal.

Categories
Uncategorized

International Trans-Inclusive Healthcare: India

Source: sangath.in/transcare/

By Jeremiah Ancheta

Two weeks ago, Cloud Dancers published a blog post overviewing the experiences of transgender people with the American health care system. In that post, we shared that, in the United States, it is currently prohibited by law for health care providers to discriminate against transgender people due to their transgender identity.

In this week’s post, we want to share more news on transgender health care access in other countries. Recently, India has taken multiple steps in making health care access for transgender people easier and more adequate. 

According to a piece by Fenway Health, The Fenway Institute in collaboration with the John Hopkins University School of Medicine established the ACCELERATE Program, an initiative that “aims to ensure comprehensive health services for transgender communities in India in a safe environment, free from stigma.” Through this program, two clinics were established that attend to the specific medical needs of transgender people. The Mitr Clinic launched in Hyderabad, India in January 2021, with a second clinic opening in the same city in July 2021.

With the first two clinics launched so far, the ACCELERATE Program hopes that more sites will open up throughout all of India that are particularly designed to attend to the medical needs of the transgender community.

Furthermore, July 2021 saw the launch of “TransCare: MedEd” in India that aims “to promote trans-inclusive healthcare and to educate healthcare professionals on transgender health,” as reported by The Times of India. This project comes after the passing of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in India in 2019, “which mandates governments to take measures for ‘review of medical curriculum and research for doctors to address their [transgender] specific health issues.’” In response to the passing of this Act, Sangath, a public health research NGO, launched this initiative in collaboration with Kasturba Medical College and was funded by the University of Chicago.

This is a huge step for the transgender community in India, who have previously voiced their concerns with the inadequacy of the Indian health care system. For instance, this piece by Al Jazeera in 2014 noted issues with the system such as “transphobia in India’s healthcare system” and health care professionals being familiar only with the traditional gender binary. 

But that’s not all! On October 6, 2021, The Economic Times reported that the Ayushman Bharat, the national public health insurance scheme in the Indian Government that is free for low-income earners, “will now provide medical cover to transgenders and support medical intervention like sex change operations.” Those covered by Ayushman Bharat receive “free treatment at all public and empanelled private hospitals.” What this means is that with the inclusion of the aforementioned services, transgender people will receive free health care servics, including sex change operations, if they are covered by Ayushman Bharat.

With the establishment of medical facilities specifically designed for transgender people, further education for health care providers on transgender health and being trans-inclusive, as well as a national reform of Indian health insurance that provides free health care services for transgender people, India has seen a lot of progress in advancing transgender rights. Cloud Dancers hopes that other countries will take notice of India’s intervention in transgender health care and follow along in providing adequate and stigma-free health care for the community.

Categories
Uncategorized

Magdalene Amelia’s Story on The Importance of Coming Out

National Coming Out Day

By Meghan Serceki 

October 11 marks the 33rd anniversary of National Coming Out Day. Each year, this is an opportunity for LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies to celebrate the courage it takes to share one’s whole, true self with the world. One of the people I would like to recognize is my friend, Magdalene Amelia. I have known her most of my life, but did not know she was a woman until she came out to herself and then, gradually, to the world within the past year.

Magdalene and I grew up together in a small town in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. While I moved at the end of middle school, she stayed and graduated high school there. There were about 700 students in her class, and out of that only one person was openly queer. In this environment, she says, “The people are so conservative that almost no one felt safe coming out. It definitely kept me in a nice little — not even walk-in closet, more like those little wardrobes built into the wall.”

She recalls early indications of her transness: looking in the mirror at age 10 and hoping that the doctors had missed something and that she would go through “girl puberty” instead, wondering if taking her mom’s birth control would cause her to develop a chest. These thoughts persisted and grew as my friends and I did a makeover on her and she saw herself presenting as femme, yet she kept them safely tucked away and written off in her own mind. She didn’t realize questioning her gender was even an option because, for her, “at the time, it really wasn’t.”

It wasn’t until moving to Los Angeles for college and living there a few years that she allowed herself to truly give credibility to her own feelings. She was done up by friends for a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and when she got home she realized how much she loved looking like that, how she didn’t want to take it off. For the first time, she allowed the thought to live in her mind, to take up room and to feel real. 

When the pandemic hit, she was left alone with these thoughts and spent a lot of time discovering the aspects to who she is that she had kept hidden from everyone, including herself. The final factor was seeing a trans woman’s tweet about how much she wished she had accepted herself while in college, and deciding that she would not have the same regret. National Coming Out Day 2021 will be exactly one year and two days since she accepted that she’s trans.

Coming out to her friends, she grew increasingly comfortable being her fully authentic self. She started  by telling her close friends, then slowly opened up to more people in her day-to-day life. She controlled who she expressed it to and when, easing herself into the process. When coming out to people in her own generation and in her college setting, she says “it’s kind of comically easy because I think we have less of the negative preconceived notions.”

However, when she felt it was time to tell her parents she felt a lot of fear — not because she didn’t think they’d be accepting but because she didn’t want them to be disappointed or feel like they no longer knew her. It was a long process explaining it to her parents and getting them to understand what she feels and why transitioning is important to her, but now that she has she feels she no longer has to hide herself. 

Since then, she has legally changed her name, presents femme all the time, and is transitioning. Being out, she claims, “feels weird to call freeing, but I finally can interact with the world as myself.”

Coming out is always daunting, and it is never the same for any two people. There is no guidebook, but by sharing our stories we might find support in one another or similarities among us. Being open about our own experiences is one of the most important things we can do not only for ourselves but also for others. We never know who in our lives might be questioning their gender or sexuality, or even dealing with other difficult situations in general. By creating a safe space and opening that line of communication, we can build a support system for everyone and work towards a more accepting future.

Categories
Uncategorized

Cultivating a Trans-Inclusive Work Environment

By Cornelia Waldrum

Humans spend more collective time working than any other activity in their lives, outside of sleeping. The average human spends over 13 years of their life at work, and that doesn’t account for overtime. As a result, people’s work environment has the potential to significantly affect the overall quality of their lives. 

Work is often a point of stress for all of us, but there are added stressors for transgender people struggling with stigma and discrimination because their gender identity doesn’t conform to societal expectations of gender expression. 

Many transgender people feel the need to hide their true identity in the workplace or face pressures to conform to traditional gender roles. Such experiences can negatively impact people’s mental and emotional wellbeing, job satisfaction and desire to stay with a company. 

“The consequences of opening up about your trans identity at work is that you open yourself up to the potential of a lot of discrimination,” Katina Sawyer, assistant professor of management at George Washington University, said. “There’s a real risk in people being authentic if their coworkers are not going to be accepting.”

The good news is that in recent years there have been notable gains in LGBTQ+ protections and support in the workplace. According to the Human Rights Council 2021 Corporate Equality Index, 71 percent of Fortune 500 companies now provide trans-inclusive health insurance coverage compared to only 34 percent in 2015. Major companies have also made public gestures of support for the LGBTQ+ community such as establishing inclusive company guidelines, donating to LGBTQ+ organizations and supporting policies like the Equality Act.

Though it is important to celebrate progress, it is equally as important to recognize that outward gestures of support must also be translated inwards to the workplace itself. There are still vast inequalities in hiring and representation of transgender employees and high reports of discrimination at work. 

What does the trans work experience look like?

Representation of transgender people in the workplace is significantly lacking compared to the percentage of transgender people in the population. According to a survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, the trans unemployment rate is three times that of the national average. This underrepresentation increases the likelihood of a sense of “onlyness” and isolation for employees who may be the only one on a team of their gender identity or sexual orientation. 

Kris Posthuma currently works as a supervisor at a public health hospital and has made many decisions about where to work based on his transgender identity. He emphasized that because he is white and presents as masculine, he’s had more opportunities than femme-presenting trans and BIPOC are afforded. Even so, he has faced a variety of challenges navigating his trans identity at work. 

All but one of Posthuma’s previous jobs have had no avenue through the application or interview process to disclose his transgender identity. There were no policies in any of the employee handbooks addressing how the organization would support transgender people who worked there, so he assumed if any issue were to arise he would be on his own. 

When Posthuma first started taking testosterone, he decided to work alone overnight in order to limit his interactions with other staff. This meant that he could avoid any potential issues at work, but also meant he didn’t have any support. He chose to work in isolation in part because he had no way of letting the organization know his gender identity in the onboarding process. 

During his time with a different organization, Posthuma was asked to provide services at a prison. Only one or two of his coworkers knew he was transgender at the time, and while he would have loved to work with incarcerated individuals, he experienced severe anxiety at the thought of the invasive searches and questioning that prison visits would entail. When Posthuma raised his concerns with the HR department and disclosed that he was transgender, he was met with a lot of questions and his concerns were dismissed. 

“At some point [the woman in HR] asked if I ever flew, and I responded that I only flew when I absolutely had to for the same reasons I was hesitant to take any job where I would have an invasive search,” Posthuma said. “She told me that if I could fly, I could do this assignment.” 

After some thought, Posthuma decided that even if it cost him his job, he would decline to work at the prison. The woman in HR continued to dismiss his fears and question his reasoning. Eventually Posthuma was excused from the assignment, but his relationship with the company was never the same afterwards and he resigned shortly after. 

A survey performed in 2020 found that of the LGBTQ+ people who experienced discrimination in the past year, three in five were transgender people. Over 25 percent of transgender people reported being not hired, fired or denied a promotion because of their gender identity. Rates of discrimination are even higher for those who are at the intersection of more than one marginalized groups such as transgender people of color. 

Katina Sawyer has been an activist and ally of the LGTBQ+ community for years. She has a PhD in women’s and gender studies as well as psychology and conducts research at George Washington University where she also teaches. Before proposing workplace changes, Sawyer and her team interview trans people to understand firsthand their desires and needs. 

Sawyer’s research reveals that about half of transgender respondents experience discriminatory behavior due to their trans identity on a daily basis. Such behavior includes hearing transphobic remarks or feeling pressure to hide their trans identity in order to avoid being mistreated. 

“I think a theme that keeps emerging in some of my experiences is silence, and feeling like I had to navigate tricky circumstances on my own,” Posthuma said. “There have been many times in my career when I could not have afforded to lose a job, so often silence was the path I chose to ensure that I would stay employed. For me, there was always the added anxiety and level of loneliness that I think can come with hiding something about yourself.”

Such experiences impact trans people’s ability to work effectively. Sawyer’s studies show experiences of discrimination lead people to feel emotionally exhausted at work and on guard around others. It creates barriers between coworkers and decreases the connectedness people feel within their workplaces. 

“Things that are exhausting tend to decrease the energy you have to put toward your job,” Sawyer said. “Hiding who you are is very exhausting, feeling rejected is very exhausting. That depletes energy that you could have otherwise put towards performing your job well.”

There is a significant price to pay for ignoring these issues. A study from the Center of American Progress found that companies in the United States lose around $64 billion annually replacing employees that have left their jobs due to discrimination. Many of these workers are members of the LGBTQ+ community. 

According to Sawyer, when people feel like they’re working in a place that actually cares about their employees and treats people fairly, job satisfaction increases for all workers. Trans inclusion heightens job attitudes and performance, energy and generativity. Better company culture also helps attract and retain better people.

What Does a Trans-Inclusive Work Environment Look Like?

To start, Sawyer emphasizes the importance of a top down approach to cultivating an inclusive work environment. It is difficult to create an inclusive workspace if leaders are not on board. Posthuma experienced this when working at a LGBTQ+ specific organization. His colleagues knew he was transgender, but the organization’s director was not inclusive of trans and non-binary people. At one point the director asked Posthuma why he felt like transgender people such as himself were part of the LGBTQ+ community at all. 

“My bigger frustration at this job was that the organization did not have or try to have insurance that would have alleviated the cost of transition-related health care,” Posthuma said. “As one of the only LGBTQ+ organizations in the state, I was dumbfounded that demonstrating how to support LGBTQ+ people organizationally and systemically was not a priority. I felt that the executive director’s personal feelings about transgender and non-binary people steered the organization away from prioritizing these types of decisions.”

Leaders should participate in education and awareness in the office and become comfortable talking about topics surrounding gender identity and expression. When approaching these topics as an ally, it is important to come to the table willing to work with people in the trans community, to listen and receive direction rather than assume to know what is needed. 

Sometimes it’s not desirable for trans people to constantly be placed in the role of educating, though it’s also not desirable to always be spoken for. Sometimes it’s not desirable for a cisgender ally to publicly chastise transphobic remarks, but it’s important to not passively tolerate discrimination either. Navigating these situations requires conversation and active engagement with trans colleagues to understand how to address each unique scenario. 

“When cisgender people demonstrate oppositional courage to disrupt the status quo and stand up for trans rights, this creates positive work attitudes in trans populations,” Sawyer said. “But we add some nuance to that with more recent data which is–when it’s done with a dose of humility.” 

It’s okay to enter these spaces and conversations without knowing everything. When employers are transparent about the fact that they are still learning and are open to feedback, it allows room for open and honest dialogue that leads to growth. 

Policy development within the company lays the foundation for a trans inclusive workplace. A good place to start is incorporating explicit non discrimination and harrassment policies into training and onboarding to set the tone for current and future employees’ behavior in the workplace. There are many trans led consulting organizations that work with companies on making their spaces more trans inclusive.

Posthuma also recommends that companies review their current hiring practices and assess if they are truly equitable. 

“There are a myriad of complex, systemic reasons why a transgender or non-binary person may have had contact with the law enforcement system, or have not followed a traditional educational path – even more so if they are also BIPOC,” Posthuma said. “There are so many resources that will help organizations adjust their hiring processes to create a better and more equitable approach to bringing on and supporting talented people that they are missing by creating meaningless barriers.”

Company training and education initiatives are crucial to increasing employees’ understanding and acceptance of their trans colleagues. One simple way to embrace gender nonconformity at work is to require all employees to include their preferred pronouns in their email signature. This normalizes gender inclusive pronouns and encourages coworkers to not assume each other’s gender and automatically attach pronouns to one another. 

Appropriate bathroom access is another important issue that should be incorporated into company policy. Allowing transgender people to use the restroom corresponding to the gender with which they identify is an act of acceptance and lessens their sense of otherness. Co-workers who have an issue with sharing a restroom with trans employees should be advised to use separate facilities. An alternate approach is to offer private bathrooms for everyone to use, regardless of if they’re transgender. 

Companies should also reimagine dress code policies to create a more accepting work environment. Gender neutral dress codes that allow for employees to choose from a range of options can help destigmatize varying expressions of gender. 

Studies have shown that diversity and equity policies exhibited in the workplace positively impacts trans employees’ openness about their identities at work, decreases experiences of discrimination and increases the productivity of all employees. Inclusive policies let trans employees know they are valued members of an organization.

A trans friendly workspace cannot be created through company policies alone, but also by demonstrating a clear commitment to inclusivity through actions and behavior. For example, working directly with people who are transitioning and ensuring their transition at work unfolds in a way they are comfortable with. 

“There are ways that people can put formal structures in place, and then there are ways that people can create informal climates that actually create that inclusive environment which then makes the policy a guardrail, but doesn’t treat the policy like it’s the ceiling of how inclusive we can be,” Sawyer said.

Having a safe, inclusive space in which to work is a basic human right that everyone should have access to, regardless of gender identity and expression. Since so much of people’s time is spent at work, it has the potential to greatly impact life outside of the workplace and how much energy people have to give to their communities and families. As a result, companies have a huge part to play in creating thriving populations of people all around the globe. 

Helpful guides for employers and trans employees : 

Employee training resources

Interview tips, legal support and suggestions for coming out in the workplace 

Transitioning in the workplace 

Categories
Uncategorized

Transgender Healthcare in America

Transgender Healthcare

By Jeremiah Ancheta

Transgender people have a long history of discrimination with the American health care system. How has this issue been addressed in more recent years? This post will survey the experiences of Transgender people with the American health care system, as well as the laws and policies that have been put in place throughout the years dealing with this issue.

Prior to 2016, no federal policies were in place that made discrimination against transgender people by virtue of being transgender impermissible in health care settings. As such, a number of transgender people have faced discrimination by health care providers on the basis of their gender identity. In 1997, a Philadelphia study revealed that 26% of respondents were denied health care. In 2006, a Virginia study found that 27% of respondents have experienced discrimination by a physician or were denied health care. Both studies stated that the respondents’ issues in health care were due to being transgender. According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 33% of transgender people had reported at least one negative experience with a health care provider by virtue of being transgender. The survey reported that such negative experiences involve verbal harassment, physical or sexual assault, or even outright denial of health care services due to their gender identity.

So what has been done in response to decades of this problem? The laws and policies concerning transgender discrimination in health care facilities have centered around Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a federal statute signed in 2010 that significantly overhauled the United State’s health care system. This particular section of the ACA states the prohibition of discrimination based on race, color, national origin, age, disability, and sex. Let’s take a look at how this federal policy has affected the permissibility of transgender discrimination in health care settings throughout the years.

Despite the prohibition of discrimination based on sex as stated in the ACA, transgender discrimination in health care environments was not federally recognized until 2016. A solution to this issue was provided by the Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights in May of 2016, which ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex is to include discrimination based on gender identity.

However, on June 2020, Health and Human Services (HHS), under the Trump administration, overturned the 2016 ruling of protection from transgender discrimination. The was done by appealing to “the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology.” By reinterpreting sex in such a way, transgender discrimination by health care providers was no longer recognized by federal law. 

Ultimately, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra announced on May 2021 that the Biden Administration reversed the policies put in place by the Trump Administration, restoring the rights of transgender people to not be discriminated in health care settings on the basis of being transgender. In doing so, the Biden Administration cited the June 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, interpreting and enforcing “sex discrimination” from Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act to reinclude discrimination based on gender identity.

With this recent decision by the Biden Administration, it is now prohibited by law for health care providers to discriminate against transgender people due to their gender identity. This is a necessary and important step to take in fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, and Cloud Dancers hopes that this policy will continue to stay in place. 

Categories
Uncategorized

Supporting Trans Loved Ones During Suicide Prevention Month

By Cornelia Waldrum

Loree Cooke-Daniels

After 11 years as a lesbian couple, Loree Cooke-Daniels’s former partner decided to transition from female to male. It was the early 90s and almost no one in the lesbian community talked about transgender issues. The couple was kicked out of the lesbian support groups they had previously been dedicated members of and Daniels’s claimed identity as a lesbian was questioned and often dismissed.

“For me it was the sense of flying off the cliff,” she laughed. “Like I had no idea where I was going to land. What I did end up taking with me is my activism. And that was the stream of continuity. I moved from being a lesbian activist to being an activist in the trans community.”

Daniels is now the policy and program director for FORGE, the nation’s oldest transgender anti-violence organization as well as the founder of Transgender Aging Network and ElderTG. She uses her knowledge of the issues transgender people face to educate others on how to be allies to the transgender community. 

What puts aging transgender people at a higher risk of suicide?

It wasn’t until the 1970s that being transgender was no longer considered a mental illness. Until 2013 being transgender was still labeled as “gender identity disorder” by the American Psychiatric Association. The discriminatory nature of the language used to describe transgender people is a reflection of the decades of inequity and stigma older transgender people have faced.

Though there has been a surge of awareness and support of the LGBTQ+ community in recent years, an array of unique challenges face the aging transgender community. While very limited, existing research on transgender people reveals that many are aging in isolation with barriers to knowledgeable health care providers and proper support from their community. 

Older transgender adults have lower levels of social support than non-transgender adults and many are survivors of sexual, physical and/or domestic abuse. They often face discrimination in health care access, employment, housing and more. 

A policy brief published by the Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) writes that, “many transgender elders routinely encounter both a health care system and a national aging network that are ill-prepared to provide culturally competent care and services and create residential environments that affirm the gender identities and expressions of transgender older people.”

According to Irene Tsikitas, Director of Care Management Services at SAGE, when there is mistreatment in the medical field such as misgendering or incorrect use of pronouns, there is less of a chance an individual will go to a medical provider for treatment and support. This can result in depressive symptoms and mental health not being properly treated. 

Such high rates of mistreatment and isolation has a significant impact on the physical and mental well-being of transgender people and is compounded with the inherent challenges of aging. According the the Aging and Health Report, more than half of older transgender respondants had experienced suicidal ideation at some point in their life, and more than one in four of them had attempted suicide. 

The age 50 and older population as a whole is expected to increase in the next few decades, and as a result the number of self-identified LGBTQ+ older adults is estimated to double by 2030. This calls for increased social support of transgender people to ensure their well being now and as they age. 

September is National Suicide Prevention Month and it is important to empower and inform ourselves of how we can be allies and support the well-being of transgender family, friends and community members in our own lives. 

For friends and family members …

Educating yourself and being supportive are the first steps in caring for your transgender loved one. Something as simple as using their chosen name and pronouns makes them feel affirmed, seen and accepted. If you don’t know what pronouns they prefer, share your own and politely ask what pronouns they prefer to use. 

Be careful about the questions you ask, some topics are not appropriate to ask about and a transgender person may not feel comfortable sharing intimate details about themselves. For example, asking about surgeries, what hormones they may be taking, or their sexual relationships, may not be appropriate. 

It is also important to remember that someone’s transgender identity is personal information for them alone to share or not share. Just because they have told you about their identity doesn’t mean they are ready to share that information with everyone in their life. 

If you are having conversations with someone who you believe might be suicidal there can be a tendency to want to connect them with the police or a hospital. According to Cooke-Daniels, from experience, if the at-risk individual is transgender, going straight to the police or even a hospital is not always the best course of action, however, each case is different. 

“Particularly for trans people, hospitals and police are not necessarily good choices,” she says. “There’s a lot of transphobia out there. In Milwaukee we’ve had four trans people commit suicide while in a psychiatric facility.” 

Instead, she emphasizes the importance of simply listening rather than trying to problem solve. “Let the person emote and work out their feelings, but not try to solve it because their brain is not online when they’re that upset,” she says.

Support groups including Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Trans Lifeline are excellent resources if you are concerned about a trans loved one.

For community members…

In order to increase social support and help reduce isolation of transgender people in the community, actively engage in outreach that promotes an affirming attitude towards transgender people of all ages. 

Faith communities should make efforts to increase awareness and inclusion of transgender people. This has the potential to start conversations about gender identity and faith within a congregation, encouraging open mindedness and acceptance. Resources such as transACTION, which is a transgender curriculum, can be utilized by churches and religious institutes to guide education and conversation. 

Senior volunteer programs and events can also increase awareness of being inclusive of transgender adults so that people feel welcomed in those spaces and find connection in their community. 

As people age and start to look at alternative housing options, it’s important that the facilities where they choose to live are affirming and supportive. The SAGE advocacy group offers cultural competency training for long term care facilities to learn how to best care for LGBTQ+ elders. 

For change to truly take root, it is also vital to support legislation that ensures equality for transgender people in the United States. Currently there are no explicit federal anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people according to Tsikitas. 

“Without those federal level protections, older LGBTQ+ people in 29 states can legally be denied access to comprehensive care because of how they identify,” Tsikitas said. Without those federal protections, it’s very important to establish and support non-discriminatory policy in your state and to support the Equality Act at the federal level. 

More resources can be found below:

How to be a Good Ally

How to be an Ally to Transgender Older Adults

Improving the Lives of Older Transgender Adults — Includes Policy Suggestions