I came across this interesting article in the New York Times: Before That Sex Change, Think About Your Next Paycheck.
You might expect that anybody who has had a sex change, or even just cross-dresses on occasion, would suffer a wage cut because of social stigmatization. Wrong, or at least partly wrong. Turns out it depends on the direction of the change: the study found that earnings for male-to-female transgender workers fell by nearly one-third after their gender transitions, but earnings for female-to-male transgender workers increased slightly.
As a cisgendered female who has always worked in traditionally male jobs, I find this interesting, but not surprising.
I was also amused (but not surprised) by the last two paragraphs:
Ben Barres, a female-to-male transgender neuroscientist at Stanford, found that his work was more highly valued after his gender transition. “Ben Barres gave a great seminar today,” a colleague of his reportedly said, “but then his work is much better than his sister’s.”
Dr. Barres, of course, doesn’t have a sister in academia.
Filed under: News, Transgender | Tagged: discrimination, earnings, employment, gender, job, new york times, Transgender, transition, transsexual, workplace | 7 Comments »
TRANScend GENDER 