The sun is setting behind organizer, writer, and teacher Dean Spade. It’s mid-August and 8 p.m. in Berlin, but Spade, the author of 2020’s widely circulated book, “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next),” still gave Prism a lengthy interview to explain the complex matrix of poverty and punishment that makes unemployment in the trans community a pervasive issue. 

“It’s the individual biases of employers and these huge structural conditions that make you so unemployable,” he said. “You don’t have a house, and you can’t get drug treatment. You can’t get treatment for your other major health care issues. … All of this stuff is going to relate to people’s employment outcomes.”

Trans unemployment is a longstanding issue. In 2011, the first report ever published about discrimination against trans communities found that the trans unemployment rate was double that of the cisgender population. For trans people of color, unemployment was up to four times higher than the national average. About 40% of trans people reported being underemployed, meaning they could only find part-time or temporary work, or they were overqualified for the jobs they had. 

Caitlin Gear, a nonbinary person looking for work in California’s Bay Area, said they are one of many seeking employment in the region. Gear estimates that in the 14 months they’ve sought work, they’ve submitted roughly 160 applications. 

“I know this is nothing new. I know that other queer people and people of color have been experiencing this and talking about this for decades,” they said. More than 1 million Californians are currently unemployed, according to the state’s Employment Development Department. 

In recent years, researchers have begun to collect more data that illustrates the true scope of trans unemployment. The 2022 U.S. Trans Survey, the largest comprehensive documentation of life for trans people in the U.S., found that the unemployment rate for trans people remains roughly twice that of cisgender people. 

Overlapping factors such as race, disability, political climate, and hiring managers and recruiters’ implicit discomfort with trans identity make trans unemployment a murky problem—one that trans people can struggle to pinpoint, beyond the transphobia at the center of hiring decisions. 

In the same conversation in which an interviewer told Gear that they were passed over for a job, the interviewer also mentioned that their application materials were “perfect.” A mentor also told them something similar. Gear said it’s difficult to determine whether their identity alone ultimately dictates whether they get a call back. 

“I don’t know if that’s something that’s hindered me,” they told Prism. “How do we know?” 

Emboldened discrimination  

According to a 2023 survey of 515 trans adults in the U.S., over 60% reported experiencing discrimination because of their gender identity and/or expression. Almost half reported being asked unnecessary or invasive questions at their place of work, and 41% reported being harassed or feeling unsafe in a restroom or locker room. One in 5 trans adults also reported being fired or denied a job or promotion due to their gender identity. Reports from past years document similar dynamics. 

Given these enduring conditions, employment tools created specifically for trans communities are now more readily available. Most focus on developing application materials such as resumes or cover letters, building interview skills, and networking. 

In Philadelphia, trans members of the Independence Business Alliance, the LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce in the region, created TransWork, a program that hosts virtual job fairs for trans and nonbinary job-seekers and develops job readiness, such as interviewing. Since its inception in 2018, the program has helped over 1,000 job seekers, 120 entrepreneurs, and over 350 employers, according to TransWork’s website. New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, known as The Center, has similar offerings alongside career counseling and job fairs in which collected resumes are distributed directly to potential employers. 

The San Francisco LGBT Center in California boasts the country’s first-ever city-funded Transgender Employment Program, in partnership with the Transgender Law Center and LGBTQIA+ health organization Trans Thrive. Launched in 2007, the program aims to help trans people push against the excuses they often receive from employers about why they aren’t being hired. (A video on the organization’s website relays a wide range of transphobic resistance from employers, from the banal “I don’t know any [trans people]” to the more explicit, “They’re all so dramatic.”) The SF LGBT Center provides standard offerings such as job referrals and career coaching, alongside advice for navigating identity at work and transitioning on the job. In fiscal year 2024-2025, a spokesperson for the center said in an email that 80 trans and nonbinary community members were enrolled in its ongoing employment services, 57 accessed legal services, and 375 community members attended at least one of the program’s career fairs. Recently, more than 200 people signed up for the center’s career fair that is set to take place on Oct. 17. 

Recognizing the ubiquity of transphobia and its ongoing role in workplace discrimination, some organizations focus on prevention. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has a 73-page manual on creating trans-inclusive workplace policies. Called the “Trans Toolkit for Employers,” the guide features common-sense advice about using standardized interview questions and focusing on desired skill sets while evaluating job candidates. Though these kinds of resources can offer a helpful baseline, they also assume that trans people can play the part of a perfect job candidate in a deeply transphobic world. TransWork, the SF LGBT Center, and The Center each offer trans inclusion workshops for employers. 

But, according to Spade, job training can sometimes be a “setup.” Employment resources invite trans people to mimic narrow conventional standards in regards to professional attire and speech, often to no avail, Spade told Prism. 

“People are just like, I want to hire someone who reminds me of my niece, not somebody who I think of as a disgusting pervert. … Anywhere people have some discretion, they’re going to choose someone they think they like or feels familiar to them,” Spade said.  

The HRC toolkit makes an unlikely assumption: that hiring managers have good intentions, and their “bias or resentment toward transgender and non-binary employees” is “often due to a lack of knowledge,” according to the organization’s materials. Broadly, the manual operates from the liberal belief that people are ashamed or embarrassed to be transphobic. However, today’s political environment is one in which transphobic attitudes and policies are expressed and advanced by those in power. 

On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders targeting the trans community. As just one example, he narrowed gender to a biological binary assigned at birth, which had wide-ranging and immediate repercussions for trans people across the U.S. Trans and nonbinary citizens were blocked from obtaining passports that match their gender identity, for example, and incarcerated trans women were removed from women’s prisons and denied gender-affirming care. However, recent court rulings have forced the Trump administration to backpedal on these issues.  

More broadly, Trump has rescinded past executive orders protecting queer and trans students from discrimination at school, along with a Biden-era policy allowing trans people to serve in the military. The administration has also banned diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the federal level, gutting even minimal programs used to raise basic awareness about workplace bias and discrimination against trans and other marginalized communities. 

Antagonism against trans people is not only more visible and acceptable, but also more commonplace. 

“They’re proud now,” said LCDD, a queer and trans person of color struggling to find a job. “They’re proud to mistreat you.” 

Anti-trans laws are also hitting an apex. A third of U.S. states now strictly define gender based on physical attributes and chromosomal or hormonal makeup, and many laws now exclude trans and nonbinary people from nondiscrimination protections. In October, nearly 500 anti-trans bills were being considered across the country. Orion Rummler, the LGBTQIA+ reporter for The 19th, wrote that anti-trans legislation and policies have “the potential to embolden public scrutiny and discrimination.”

“A web of relationships” 

As employment remains out of reach for many members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and trans people in particular, many turn to mutual aid to stay housed, cover bills, or more broadly survive. According to Spade, the concept of mutual aid “mainstreamed” in the summer of 2020, at the peak of the uprisings surrounding the police murder of George Floyd and at the start of the pandemic, when approximately 26 million U.S. residents lost their jobs and searched for alternatives to stay afloat.

Spade described mutual aid as a web of relationships “building all of our capacities to solve our own problems and help each other and be connected with care and resistance.”. 

As the government divested from safe housing, clean water, and reliable jobs (something Critical Resistance co-founder Ruth Wilson Gilmore has called “organized abandonment”), people turned toward each other. Marginalized communities often work in “underground” economies due to their gender identity or immigration status, and for them, informal networks that provide gender affirming care, funds, or food have long existed. At the height of the pandemic, people found ways to move money to those most in need. Community refrigerators sprouted up nationwide, allowing locals to grab ingredients or a home-cooked meal free of charge. Activists handed out masks and other personal protective equipment through distribution initiatives. Against the backdrop of nationwide marches and so-called racial reckonings across industries, it seemed the U.S. was on the precipice of a new era. 

Five years later, online fundraisers—now synonymous with mutual aid—are incredibly common. Social media networks are alight with strangers asking for short-term funds to pay their rent, buy groceries, move across the country, or obtain gender-affirming care. Some organizations, such as Georgia’s Phoenix Transition Program and Arkansas’ Intransitive, earmark funds for trans people in crisis. 

LCDD is no stranger to mutual aid. For 20 years, they held clinical and research roles related to reproductive health care. But after spending over a year applying for jobs they were never hired for, they required a new kind of support. 

“I have a number of friends who are on mutual aid watch,” they explained. “If I don’t get some sort of odd job, they’ll put up [a post saying], ‘Hey, this person hasn’t had any work, can we raise $2,000?’ And surprisingly, people do. I have never seen mutual aid work this well.” 

Though LCDD’s experience is novel in the world of mutual aid, where many people are unable to fundraise even a small portion of the money they need, Spade reiterated that mutual aid in response to trans precarity is not new. 

“Giving each other money is a thing that our communities have always done,” he told Prism. 

While having to rely on mutual aid creates its own kind of precarity, LCDD told Prism that they’ve unfortunately grown accustomed to the instability triggered by their decision to come out.  

Over the last five years or so, LCDD came out as genderqueer to close family and friends. But publicly changing their name and pronouns was a more recent decision—one born out of anger. After being disowned by their parents when they came out, LCDD needed to know who else should be cut from their lives. 

“If my parents have the audacity to do this, who else in my life could?” they said. Their inability to find a job since publicly coming out 16 months ago is “very suspicious,” they told Prism. 

At their previous job, LCDD mentioned their gender identity during a meeting about the creation of a new department aimed at supporting LGBT reproductive health. Afterward, they told Prism, a colleague constantly harassed them. 

“This person in every meeting found a reason to bring up or make a terrible joke about gender,” LCDD said. 

An overwhelming number of trans people share LCDD’s experience of workplace discrimination. In 2024, the Williams Institute found that 82% of trans people have been fired, not hired, not promoted, or verbally, physically, or sexually harassed because of their gender identity. 

After experiencing months of harassment, LCDD filed a complaint with the Department of Justice and was eventually fired from their job. Though they consulted attorneys and considered suing their former employer, they eventually abandoned the effort. 

“I just dropped it. I was exhausted. I also got to a point where it was like I didn’t have enough money or energy to continue [pursuing] the issue, which I’m sure they were counting on,” they said. 

The aftermath has been bittersweet. 

“Honestly, my mental health has been unbelievably better since then, even though my economic health has not been,” LCDD said. 

The discrimination and harassment too often experienced by trans people, coupled with the Trump administration’s anti-trans agenda and the resulting deteriorating political climate, are just some of the reasons trans people seek employment in fields and roles considered more inclusive. For example, Gear’s job search is siloed almost exclusively to LGBTQIA+ organizations. Yet, within the parameters of “inclusive employment” often found through nonprofit organizations, longer-term roles are limited and reliant on dwindling foundation funding. 

“There’s a reason why we’re all having to compete against each other,” Gear said. 

“Not my vision of liberation” 

A 2023 grantmaking report from Funders for LGBTQ Issues found that for every $100 awarded by major U.S. funders such as the Ford Foundation, only 20 cents was allocated to LGBTQIA+ communities and issues in the United States. This pittance represents a 5-cent decrease from the previous year. In the report, Funders for LGBTQ Issues President Saida Agostini-Bostic referred to this pattern as “a portrait of progressive philanthropic investment in decline.” 

Soon, these conditions will only get worse. 

The Trump administration is currently in the process of attacking what it perceives as leftist institutions and their funders. In June, a congressional subcommittee held “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild,” a hearing to “expose how radical Democrats have funneled billions of taxpayer dollars to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs.)” 

The administration’s general strategy is to characterize organizations and foundations as antisemitic or violent, thus triggering an investigation in an effort to eliminate groups’ federal funding. Democratic megadonor George Soros and California’s Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) have come under intense scrutiny in recent months. “What they want to do is shut us up and not be able to expose what’s happening to the human beings that are impacted by this,” said CHIRLA Executive Director Angelica Salas to the Los Angeles Times in June as immigration raids roiled the city. 

The grantees of increasingly limited foundation funds are precisely the community hubs and programs from which people like Gear and LCDD seek work. But even when work is available in these rarefied spaces, it is often limited to entry-level roles. Despite possessing a postgraduate degree and years of experience, Gear has faced resistance when applying for leadership roles. 

“I often get pushed back to the entry level, and I’m very much like, no. I think my education should matter,” they said. In a survey of 32,000 nonprofit organizations that share some gender identity information about their leadership and board of directors, only 114 organizations report having at least one transgender CEO or executive director, representing fewer than 1% of nonprofit leaders.

The future that Spade is fighting for is one in which trans people aren’t only funneled into menial labor. 

“I don’t want more trans people having terrible service jobs that break their bodies and their minds and learning to conform to gender norms enough to do those jobs,” Spade told Prism. “That is not my vision of liberation.” 

In the nation’s very first transgender district, work and ownership are essential.

Located in San Francisco, the Transgender District was created in 2017 by Black trans women and longtime activists Honey Mahogany, Aria Sa’id, and Janetta Johnson. Now co-directed by trans advocates Carlo Gomez Arteaga and Breonna McCree, one of the district’s main programs is its entrepreneurship accelerator. The free, four-month “business bootcamp” includes webinars, information sessions, mentorship, free business tax filings, one-on-one coaching, and assistance with the creation of a full brand suite and website. 

“We really want to uplift the importance of what this funding and these opportunities mean for our community, especially during these years where we’re ‘otherized’ and many in our community are criminalized for just existing,” Gomez Arteaga told the Bay Area Reporter last year. 

However, an individual entrepreneurship accelerator in the most LGBTQIA+-friendly city in the nation, along with a sprinkling of job fairs or awareness initiatives in other friendly cities, does not ensure that trans people can thrive nationwide. These efforts are small pieces in the much larger puzzle of trans unemployment. 

Josie Caballero, the former U.S. Trans Survey director, said that many trans people and their families are considering leaving their home states due to new anti-trans legislation. Nearly half of the respondents surveyed have considered moving to another state, while 10% already have. All of these people will require work. Meaningfully shifting the conditions that create trans unemployment will require a broad coalition, including cisgender people. 

LCDD has personally seen the power of what can happen when people of all kinds come together to help a trans person in need of work. 

In response to a LinkedIn post about their unemployment, someone made a group chat on LCDD’s behalf with nearly 20 members with the aim of finding them employment or short-term funds  “Everybody was queer or disabled or had a child who was queer. Interestingly, it’s a lot of men,” LCDD explained, adding that most of the cis men have close relationships with a queer or trans person. Many were fathers of trans children. 

Some of these men told LCDD that they felt it was their responsibility to help and to learn to be in community with people. Ultimately, the group chat led to $2,000 worth of funds that helped LCDD through a rough patch. 

When we build support networks, we’re actually building a society that is survivable.

Dean Spade, author of “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)”

According to Spade, turning the thin bonds between strangers into thick relationships is an opportunity born of mutual aid. Building with the people behind online fundraisers also leads to greater action, such as community organizing, which Spade characterized as “the kind of systems level work” that goes beyond addressing symptoms and has the potential to upend the conditions of trans unemployment. 

To make this change real, people have to use, and offer, what is available to them— beyond money. 

“Go change the diapers of the baby, go give someone a ride,” Spade said, noting that while online fundraisers are important, giving your time and energy—especially to movements—is just as meaningful. 

LCDD told Prism that their group chat was composed of people who were unsure of how and where to direct their energy. “[It was] a lot of people not knowing when it was appropriate to help, because it’s kind of a weird thing, especially when you’re a stranger,” they said. 

But according to Spade, there is no way to raise enough money to float everybody who capitalism is destroying. “When we build support networks,” Spade said, “we’re actually building a society that is survivable.”

Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor