Apparently CNN’s LGBT activism has found its way onto its financial website CNN Money. In a February 22 article, writer Blake Ellis featured numerous transgendered individuals struggling to find work in America.
The article serves as a means to promote transgendered rights and Ellis claims that, “as millions of Americans struggle with unemployment, this community is being hit especially hard.” Numerous transgendered individuals are profiled to show the supposed struggles they experience.
While Ellis noted the lack of true data on transgendered individuals across America but still pushes on with his activism:
It's hard to pin down a precise jobless rate since there's so little transgender-specific data available. The most recent comprehensive study of more than 6,000 transgender individuals wasreleased in 2011 by the National Center for Transgender Equality. This report found the transgender jobless rate to be 14% -- double the national rate -- and as high as 28% for black respondents.
Numerous examples are given to show how transgendered individuals are consistently turned down from jobs and don’t have the ability to afford a home at all, with homelessness among this group estimated to be double the national rate.
One such example is Keisha Allen who the author highlights as a transgendered individual who, “Once I get the interview and my name doesn’t match my ID and my body doesn’t match what it says on my ID, I never hear back. My only way of survival is thorough sex.”
After highlighting the economic hardship of being transgendered, Ellis then proceeded to the advocacy portion of his article, mentioning how:
The LGBT Community Center in San Francisco assists transgender job seekers with decisions like which name to include on a resume -- the one from their previous sex or their new name -- whether to bring up their transition to a potential employer or to come out to past employers in case they are called as a reference.
Ellis then cited unidentified “advocacy groups” who say that a federal law protecting transgender workers remains crucial to getting at the root of the unemployment problem.
The article ends with a quote from transgendered activist Greg Nevins:
Once [employers] are aware of what is prohibited, I think it will get rid of a lot of the barriers to transgender individuals having the right to earn a living and be part of the workforce"
