Transgender Jobseekers Navigating Closeting Communication

Transgender Employment Discrimination

In 2002, Buzzanell called for future organizational communication research on underrepresented job applicants and encouraged scholars’ examination of the socio-historical-cultural contexts of job-seeking beyond the interviewee–interviewer dyad. Following this call, I present a snapshot of ongoing, systemic discrimination against U.S. transpeople in all aspects of their lives from the National Center for Transgender Equality’s nationally representative survey of 27,715 respondents (James et al., 2016).

Work data revealed that 15% of transgender people are unemployed (3 times more than the cisgender unemployment rate), growing substantially higher among transpeople of color (from 20%-35%; James et al., 2016). In addition, in the past year, 61% of transgender jobseekers were not hired for a job to which they applied. If hired, many transpeople reported not disclosing their gender identity to supervisors (49%) or coworkers (42%). Respondents were also fired because of their gender identities, with transwomen most impacted at 18%. Research on difference at work helps to further explicate job-seeking challenges for transgender people.

Difference at Work

Organizational communication research elucidates “how we come to know work individually, relationally, organizationally, and culturally through our communication of difference” (Ashcraft, 2011, p. 4). We can understand difference through relationships of constructed social identity categories including race, disability, sexuality, and gender identity (see Allen, 2011). Moreover, difference research shows how workers are read as “fitting” certain occupations based on identities and stereotypes. This results in potential occupational segregation due to enacted historical norms about who does what work (see Ashcraft, 2011), including how workers’ bodies are read as communicating “value” or “fit” (or lack thereof; see Trethewey, 1999).

Focusing on transgender workers’ experiences, Dixon’s research examined transpeople’s navigation of nondiscrimination policies (Dixon, 2015) and how organizations may welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) sexualities while dismissing transgender identities (Dixon & Dougherty, 2014). Schilt’s (2006) extensive transmen research also showcased that two thirds of participants experienced newfound privilege (i.e., higher respect, authority, pay) by becoming men at work, although this varied by race, age, physical appearance, occupation, and education. Schilt’s participants gained new privilege both when disclosing their gender identities and when remaining “stealth”—a transgender vernacular term sometimes used to signify not disclosing transition. Schilt and other academics position stealth as less value-laden than the closet metaphor (which may connote “hiding”), whereas stealth “only entails that they choose not to share certain aspects of their life history or embodiment with others” (Zimman, 2009, p. 62). Contra this perspective, one of my participants noted how stealth can be read as “being deceitful” and therefore recommended that academics use “not publically identifying as transgender” instead. Following this suggestion, I advance the construct of closeting communication to showcase individuals navigating disclosure of their own identities with others and to contrast images of “hiding” or “deceit,” especially as such rhetoric is employed in violence against transgender people.

Closeting Communication for Transgender Jobseekers

I now share transpeople’s job-seeking experiences from my three-year ethnography of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico (TGRC), ¹ a nonprofit organization and clearinghouse of resources, educators, advocates, and direct services for transgender people in New Mexico. TGRC provides weekly work outreach for transgender jobseekers, which I led as a volunteer.

While many participants applied to dozens of jobs, some transwomen and/or transpeople of color submitted hundreds of applications for months (or even years) before being hired, if they were hired at all; they thus returned frequently to TGRC for outreach services. TGRC Co-Director Brooks (a White transman in his 40s) explained,

We see people look for jobs for 3-4 years, and they tell us that they’ve seen people throw out their application when they leave because they are transpeople of color. That is our job to make it so that changes.

Similarly, Ethan, a transman in his mid-20s who identified as a “White-passing” Mexican and Persian, described his depression from the arduous process of job-seeking when disclosing his gender identity where, “these places wanted to hire me until they learned that so either I’m going to have to pretend to be someone I’m not, or I’m just not going to be able to find a job.”

Given rampant employment discrimination, transgender participants revealed how they engaged in closeting communication as a process of choosing when and if to disclose their gender and/or other identities. They frequently processed job-seeking ambiguity and retrospectively questioned their closeting communication challenges, especially through possible “outing” of their identities without their consent, including potential employers reading their bodies and/or speech in interviews, background checks revealing former names, and having inconsistent gender markers on identification documents. For example, Michelle—a 23-year-old, White, formerly homeless transwoman—described not being hired after multiple retail interviews, even after being told she was advancing in the search. After Michelle’s “clean” background check, she began “being put off” by the organization. Marie, a White, cisgender TGRC staff member, believed that Michelle’s former name appeared in the background check or a past employer outed Michelle as transgender. Michelle personally questioned if her closeting communication was “successful” but remained uncertain, ultimately citing the employer’s disorganization and her limited retail experiences for not being hired.

Findings also showcased how participants navigated closeting communication with other identities in job-seeking, for example, experiences of racism, homelessness, addiction, and incarceration. For example, Aron—a Diné (Navajo), 35-year-old, straight, college-educated transwoman—had extensive lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) and health organizing experience, and she centered her Diné and transgender identities while job-seeking. However, Aron struggled with closeting communication connected to a prior felony in interviews, which ultimately surfaced with her disclosure and/or in background checks. She considered how her prior criminal history limited her advocacy employability whereas her trans and Native identities hindered her in non-advocacy positions. Aron talked about identifying as an indigenous transwoman and how others assume:

You’re a prostitute, you’re on the streets, and what else? [And] that’s a part of me. I have done all that, but I’m also a college-educated person . . . You’re perceiving me as a stereotype; that’s not every transperson. Although there are some transwomen who are on the streets, who are, they’re addicts, who do sex work or survival work, some of them are college-educated because they can’t find the job because of these stereotypes that you believe.

Aron described occupational segregation where indigenous transwomen become known by their differences and could be forced into sex and survival work because of systemic unemployment.

Extending Closeting Communication

Through closeting communication, transgender jobseekers navigated stigma, personal disclosure, and forced outing. Participants collectively reflected on the inherent ambiguities with closeting communication as a process. Some believed their gender identity prevented their employment while others remained unsure of how, when, and if gender identity may have influenced job-seeking challenges.

Importantly, many participants revealed other identities and experiences as impacting their job-seeking. Whether considering criminal histories like Aron or limited work history like Michelle, they revealed that transgender jobseekers’ closeting communication involves multiple identities interacting. I argue, then, that transpeople’s closeting communication transforms “the closet” from a container for simply concealing gender identity into an intersectional process where individuals navigate communication of their diverse, overlapping identities.

Findings also showcase that closeting communication does not always include consent. Transpeople ultimately questioned their closeting communication “success” and feared interruptions, such as how their bodies or gender expressions could be read as transgender (see also Zimman, 2009) and therefore stigmatized and stereotyped as unemployable. A consistent challenge for participants was the uncertainty of whether their decisions not to disclose identities were violated in job-seeking and led to their not being hired.

Future organizational communication research should further examine closeting communication at work. First, projects may consider ambiguity and embodiment, and problematize the “success” of closeting communication. Second, we need additional inquiry into closeting communication, consent, and outing. Third, we should further examine closeting communication as intersectional with complex relationships of disclosure of interconnecting identities. Finally, occupational segregation and stigma for transgender workers demand our relevant and immediate responses. As Aron explained to me about transgender workers, “We are more than our bodies, and we are not incapable and unemployable.”