[Tsa] Survey on transgender and gender non-conforming discrimination

[Joshua Kenneth Truitt]

Below is the press release taken from
http://www.thetaskforce.org/press/releases/pr_transsurvey_091108


Comprehensive national survey on transgender discrimination launched by NCTE and
Task Force

September 11, 2008

MEDIA CONTACT:
Roberta Sklar, Communications Director
(Office) 646.358.1465
(Cell) 917.704.6358
rsklar at theTaskForce.org

Respond to the survey online at
https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim.

“This is an absolutely critical national effort. We urge all transgender and
gender non-conforming people to take the survey to help guide us in making
better laws and policies that will improve the quality of life for all
transgender people. We need everyone’s voice in this, everyone’s
participation.”
— Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 — In the wake of one of the most violent years on record of
assaults on transgender people, the National Center for Transgender Equality
(NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force have teamed up on a
comprehensive national survey to collect data on discrimination against
transgender people in housing, employment, public accommodations, healthcare,
education, family life and criminal justice.

To date, in 2008, several young gender non-conforming people of color have been
murdered, including California junior high school student Lawrence King, who
was shot in public during the school day. King’s murder, and the murders of
Simmie Williams in South Carolina and Angie Zapata in Greeley, Colo., come in a
year in which we are still working to include transgender provisions in a
federal bill to protect lesbian, gay and bisexual workers from discrimination
in employment.

Hate crimes against transgender people suggest multiple points of vulnerability,
which can compound each other: discrimination in employment may lead to unstable
housing situations that in turn can leave transgender people at the mercy of
public programs and public officials who may not respond respectfully or
appropriately to them. These stressors add burdens in a healthcare system that
is often unprepared for transgender people’s needs. The list goes on. “We know
that transgender people face discrimination on multiple fronts,” said Mara
Keisling, executive director of NCTE. “This data will help us sort out the
combination of forces that leave transgender people vulnerable to unemployment,
homelessness and violence.”

Jaime Grant, director of the Task Force Policy Institute, noted, “There is so
little concrete data on the needs and risks associated with the widespread
discrimination we see in the lives of the transgender people we know. This data
will help point the way to an appropriate policy agenda to ensure that
transgender people have a fair chance to contribute their talents in the
workplace, in our educational systems and in our communities.”

NCTE and the Task Force have partnered with Pennsylvania State University’s
Center for the Study of Higher Education to collect and analyze the data.
Applying rigorous academic standards to the investigation will strengthen any
case made to legislators, policy makers, healthcare providers and others whose
decisions impact the lives of transgender people. A national team of experts in
survey research and transgender issues developed the questionnaire, which can be
completed online at https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim.

Keisling notes: “This is an absolutely critical national effort. We urge all
transgender and gender non-conforming people to take the survey to help guide
us in making better laws and policies that will improve the quality of life for
all transgender people. We need everyone’s voice in this, everyone’s
participation.”

–30–

The mission of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is to build the
grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
community. We do this by training activists, equipping state and local
organizations with the skills needed to organize broad-based campaigns to
defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation, and building the
organizational capacity of our movement. Our Policy Institute, the movement’s
premier think tank, provides research and policy analysis to support the
struggle for complete equality and to counter right-wing lies. As part of a
broader social justice movement, we work to create a nation that respects the
diversity of human expression and identity and creates opportunity for all.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., we also have offices in New York City, Los
Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis and Cambridge.


-- 
Joshua Truitt