Transgender activism

The transgender rights movement is a movement determined to eliminate discrimination against transgender people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care. It also seeks to eliminate violence against transgender people. In some jurisdictions, transgender activism seeks to allow changes to identification documents to conform with a person's current gender identity.

In a survey conducted by National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called "Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey", respondents reported that 90% of them had experienced discrimination and harassment in the work place and at school. The trans community experiences rates of unemployment that are double the national average. Additionally, one out of every twelve trans women, and one out of every eight trans women of color, are violently murdered (the nature of these crimes is often perpetrated in such a way that attempts to dehumanize the victim). (For more details refer to Transgender inequality).

Transgender people of color often face an identity that is under speculation, suspicion, doubt, and policing. Those within the community are often left out from the wealthy, able-bodied, American, and white experience that those in the non-trans community often focus on, and are subject to discrimination as a transgender and as a person of color.

Some of the ways White transgender people have more privilege than those of their colored counterparts include racialized violence, better pay, better representation and benefits from the mainstream media movement. According to a National Transgender Discrimination survey, the combination of anti-transgender bias and individual racism results in transgender people of color being 6 times more likely to experience physical violence when interacting with the police compared to cisgender White people, two-thirds of LGBT homicide victims being transgender women of color, and a startling 78% attempt suicide. The NCAVP survey also found that trans survivors were 1.7 times more likely to be the victims of sexual violence than cis-gender survivors.

According to the U.S. Current Population Survey and the National Committee on Pay Equity, Caucasian-Americans earn higher wages for the same work. In " Beyond Stereotypes: Poverty in the LGBT Community," Brad Sears and Lee Badgett explain that transgender people are "four times as likely to have a household income under $10,000 and twice as likely to be unemployed" as most people in the U.S. Nearly a fifth of transgender people experience homelessness in their lifetimes, and 90 percent report having been discriminated against or harassed while on the job. Transgender people of color are more likely to be poor, be homeless, or lack a college degree.

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