Transgender Awareness Week
A study was conducted by the Williams Institute in June 2016 and concluded that 0.6% of the U.S. population (1.4 million) identify themselves as transgender. Trans people face many issues within their community that causes them to feel like they are in danger and are unsafe. A survey found that 50% of trans people claim to have been raped or assaulted by a romantic partner. Trans people have been murdered simply for being trans, in addition to their loved ones and/or friends because of being involved with them. Some trans women were arrested for fighting back against their attacker. Trans women and supporters formerly united with one another and took stands against discrimination towards trans people by holding riots. Transgender Awareness Week established in response to these killings and imprisonments in order to highlight the challenges faced by trans people.
Discrimination against non-binary gender people
Not only does discrimination against transgender people in the workplace affect transgender employees, but it also affects the entire workplace team, distracting the victim and the perpetrator from the job itself. In 2001 study by the West Lothian Transgender Support Group, it was found that around 50 percent of transgender people do not survive beyond their thirtieth birthday, with most taking their own lives due to discrimination and others losing their lives from violence of cisgender individuals. The study’s statistic is also known as “the 50 percent rule”. With that being said, transgender individuals in the U.S. often face workplace discrimination like conflicts related to their bathroom usage, backlash over transitioning genders and being “misgendered” by coworkers. The Center of American Progress in 2012 also found that there is also a substantial amount of public ignorance towards transgender communities, in comparison to LGB community peers. Because of that, negative psychological consequences occur as a result like mental health disparities, higher rates in attempted suicide, and paranoid thinking in public spaces. Columbia University’s study in 2003 found that ideas of perceived discrimination are consistent with models of minority stress. It was also found that sexual minorities, such as the transgender community, are vulnerable to physical and mental health difficulties due to an exposure to chronic life stressors. The study finds that the transgender community in the U.S. possesses pre-conceived notions of rejection, hostility and discrimination from gender identities outside their groups.