There are only a few days left for people to take the U.S. Trans Survey, the largest effort ever to document the experiences of transgender people across the country. One Washington, D.C. organization is working to make sure the survey includes the voices of trans people who might not even have regular access to a computer.
HIPS has served the D.C. sex worker, drug user, and transgender communities since 1993, working to promote their health, rights, and wellness. At the organization’s brand new Center for Health and Achievement, HIPS now offers an in-house health clinic, as well as the services that it has traditionally provided through mobile outreach, including condom distribution, syringe exchange, case management, crisis counseling, shower and laundry facilities, and a clothing closet. They’re also trying to make sure their clients can complete the survey, recognizing that it’s imperative that trans women of color and those who have used drugs and engaged in sex work are included in the sample.
Ms. Kenny Mayo has worked at HIPS for five years and in her role as drop-in center coordinator, she is often the one with whom clients interact directly when they enter the center. As for how many of HIPS’ clients are transgender, Mayo told ThinkProgress, “100 percent.” Though her own story is not one that has included significant discrimination, the questions in the survey resonated a lot with her because of her work with HIPS.
Many HIPS clients, she says, “get put out, thrown out into the woods. You’re homeless.” Questions about losing access to family and community “stuck” with her because she knows how common they are. For example, the survey asks about how trans people connect to their community, and Ms. Kenny has heard too many stories about being cut off. “When you grow up in the church, that’s your safe haven, but when you put a dress on, you couldn’t go to the church anymore. You lose your faith.”
She’s also heard from many women who have either experienced discrimination trying to access a restroom or who simply avoid bathrooms entirely for their safety. “Women hold it because they fear the bathroom,” she explained, noting that they often go in an alley instead.
One of the biggest factors that set these trans women on a course toward poverty, homelessness, sex work, and drug use is the inability to get a job. One of HIPS’ clients, Louraca, 32, told ThinkProgress that many young girls follow the example of others who are already working the “stroll” — engaging in sex work — and see that as an opportunity to survive, but only because they can’t secure other work. It’s not for lack of trying.
“You see the other girls, and you follow the other girls that are just like you, and those girls are out there tricking, because they have no other opportunities,” she explained.
Many trans women resort to sex work, and some, like Louraca, try to pursue other job opportunities at the same time. “I have an education, I’m good with the public, I’m an administrative assistant. I’m a human rights specialist,” she said, highlighting stable work that she’s had. But when she was found in violation of her parole, she had to serve the rest of her time and could no longer work. Now, “I don’t got no job, I don’t got nowhere to stay, I don’t have nothing. I haven’t been back to work, I don’t have anything. When I got out of prison, I had nothing.”
Louraca is still working to get the job back, but her current circumstances are an obstacle. “It’s just my stability, you understand what I’m saying? I’m not stable. If I’m not stable, I can’t get up and dress professional and go to work everyday like I used to.”
Louraca has spent time in shelters, but right now she’s homeless. “I live on the streets. You would never believe I live on the streets sometimes. People look at me and they say, ‘Well, where do you live?’ And I tell them I live here and there, I don’t tell them where I live. I don’t tell them I live on the streets… I live in the area.”
As Louraca was sharing her story, Roxanne, 58, chimed in: “Sometimes I think we’re too hard on ourselves from being turned around so much and turned away. It kind of breaks your confidence sometimes and it makes you say, ‘Fuck it, I’m not even going to go through that.’” They return to the street, the one place where they know they can make some money.
Roxanne, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1985 (only after she was in a car accident) and who is currently in recovery from a drug problem, doesn’t understand why the gay men and lesbian women who own restaurants and other businesses don’t give more opportunities to trans women. “If a transgender woman comes in and puts an application in, I think they should give her a chance, at least a 30-day or 60-day trial. That way we can show them what we can do.” That, she believes would make a huge difference.
“If girls get a job, that can break down on the homelessness,” Roxanne continued. “That can help the economy because we’re going shopping and things. But we have to have the chance to do this. It’s very hard and I’ve never understood why the lesbian and gay communities have been so down and seemed like they’re above the transgender women’s community. All in all, we’re in it together, and I think we need to get closer. People need to get some type of understanding of who we are.”
There’s a burden that needs to be overcome for trans women to get back on their feet. “We need mental [health] help, because of what we go through,” Roxanne said. “Not because of who we are!” Louraca jumped back in. Too often, opponents of transgender equality claim that transgender people are mentally ill because they’re transgender, as opposed to it being a result of the discrimination and violence they’ve experienced.
“We need to be understood and helped,” Roxanne said. Transgender women can do the work, she contended, but they just need the opportunity to do it. “The community has to get together on hiring transgender girls. It keeps us off the street, it’ll keep us out of jail, it’ll keep a roof over our head. It all helps.” At another point in the conversation, she reiterated, “I would take any job. Most of the girls would too. We just don’t get the opportunity.”
Both Louraca and Roxanne have experienced employment discrimination. Louraca always felt good about her job interviews, but the only job she ever got was at an organization with an LGBT focus. “Why did I not get hired nowhere else? I was qualified! Why didn’t I?” There was no clear indication in the interview process why she wouldn’t be offered the job. “In my mind, it tells me it’s because I’m transgender. Duh. Nobody else wanted you there on their front desk as their secretary.”
Roxanne has held a number of different jobs, but she has had a different experience in the interviews for jobs she didn’t get. “I knew they weren’t going to hire me. You’re on the phone talking to somebody and and they say, ‘Come on in for the interview.’ You get there, you write out the application, and it’s a look you get. There’s a look you get and a feeling you get. They make you feel a way to know that you’re not going to get the job, but they try not to. But they do. It’s really bad.”
But she has also seen the difference having a job makes in her life and the lives of other trans women. “It gives a person self-assurance, and it gives them respect, and you learn to enjoy working, because you buy stuff with your money and you appreciate it more. You really worked for it.”
For Ms. Kenny, serving clients like Roxanne and Louraca has been one of the best experiences of her life, because she can see the difference she’s making in theirs. A few years after she started with HIPS, she was invited to return to her manager position at Nordstrom, but she declined. “I give you clean clothes, I give you a shower, and you are happy. When you say, ‘Thank you for giving me a place to sit and rest, that means a lot to me” — a lot more than selling thousand-dollar necklaces at the jewelry counter.
All three of these women have contributed their experiences to the U.S. Trans Survey, which will help track rates of discrimination and well-being so that more services can be tailored to support them. But when invited to share what they want most from society at large, or what they want people to know most about them, their asks were very simple.
“We don’t bite,” Ms. Kenny beamed. “We’re nice people.”
“We’re not much more different from them,” Louraca explained. “We’re more alike than we are different.”
“I’m normal. I’m just like them,” Roxanne said. “The one thing you can teach them is, make them aware that we are like them. We live a life just like they live. We want them to give us opportunities that they give others… Understand us. We’re totally human beings. We have a life just like they have a life. We have bills that need to be paid just like they have bills that need to be paid. We need jobs. We want respect just like everyone else wants respect, and we give it.”