4-18-20

How the trans community is surviving the Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus isn’t transphobic. But America’s economic and health systems are.

Here’s how the pandemic could further devastate trans people.

By: Katelyn Burns

In this article, Burns discusses how the Coronavirus pandemic is affecting trans people and exacerbating the economic hardship so many trans people across the country already faced before the pandemic struck. Just like so many others across America, savings have become hugely important during this time and this crisis has highlighted how financially vulnerable much our society is given low rates of saving and emergency, or “rainy day”, funds. But this issue is more acute for the trans community, who are left with even lower amounts of saving because of the discrimination they face on a regular basis when trying to find work. The statistics are staggering for how many trans people face poverty, unemployment, and discrimination.

According to data from the National Center for Transgender Equality, three-quarters of all of trans people have experienced discrimination on the basis of their gender identity at work, and more than one in four have been fired from their jobs for being trans. And that discrimination only compounds when trans people have other intersecting identities — like being a person of color, or femme-presenting, or both.

Therefore, when the pandemic struck leaving so many people without jobs, trans people continue to suffer financially even more than the rest of the population during this pandemic because they are less likely to have money saved as a result of previous employment discrimination. Not only does the pandemic heighten the financial underprivileged trans people face because of transphobia, but it also has highlighted the issues trans people face in our healthcare system. Because healthcare is largely tied to employment in the United States and many trans people face unemployment as a result of discrimination, trans people are generally less likely to have health insurance than their peers. Not only this, but trans people also have a more difficult time signing up for state health insurance because many states require a credit score on the form. Dice Redden, a social worker case manager in Southern California, described how our healthcare system has failed trans people as a result.

“They can’t get access to it because it requires a credit score…they don’t have a credit score because they can’t get a co-signer because they don’t have a parent. How are you trying to call it universal health care if the kids who need it the most don’t have access to it? And that’s trans and nonbinary kids who got kicked out of their house.”

I found this part of the article especially striking and educative on the experience of trans people in our healthcare system, a discriminatory one with a history of being deprioritized that the Coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated. The article also stated that the US Department of Health released a bulletin specifically outlining that discrimination because of disability is illegal in response to concerns that rationing of medical supplies and services would discriminate against disabled people. However, while several forms of discrimination were specifically defined in the bulletin, notably absent, was discrimination on the basis of gender identity, leaving trans and non-binary people at greater risk of discrimination in medical treatment during the pandemic.

While advocates have already begun petitioning to protect trans people during this crisis, I find it interesting what little media attention this has gotten, at least from my personal view. The news is on for the greater part of the day in my house, yet I have not heard anything about it. This is concerning but unsurprising given the transphobia we see in our society, and I think it exemplifies it in the opposite way we typically see it manifest itself. While typically transphobia shows itself in the portrayals of trans people in the media, here we see it showing itself in the complete lack of attention and voice the media is choosing to give the trans community during this crisis.

I’m disabled and need a ventilator to live. Am I expendable during this pandemic?

As medical rationing becomes a reality, “quality of life” measures threaten disabled people like me.

By: Alice Wong 04/04/20

In this Vox article, Alice Wong discusses her experience as an Asian American disabled person living through the Coronavirus pandemic. She discusses how in a world that has become so destabilized and disrupted, for those with physical and mental disabilities are skilled in adapting to a world that was never designed for them in the first place. She discusses the manifestation of the ableism our readings for this week discussed and offered a compelling example of how disabled people, and women, in particular, are positioned in society’s view.

I am tethered to and embedded with a number of things that keep me alive: a power wheelchair, a non-invasive ventilator that is connected to my chair’s battery, a mask that goes over my nose attached to a tube, metal rods fused to my spine. How I sound, move, and look elicits pity and discomfort by many in public. This is the norm.

As her quote above demonstrates, she regularly faces the consequences of our society’s stereotypical views of the body and others’ reactions to her disability. The pity and discomfort she feels reflects our society’s ableism and rocky history interacting with those with disabilities.

Already, disability rights groups have filed complaints that some states, such as Alabama and Washington, are making triage recommendations that discriminate against people with disabilities. While the federal health department’s Office of Civil Rights released a bulletin on non-discrimination during the pandemic, I’m still worried. The ethical frameworks for rationing often put people like me at the bottom of the list.

As doctors face difficult decisions regarding rationing of medical supplies and services, those with disabilities are at risk. Arguments regarding “quality of life” inherently put those with disabilities in a position that assumes they already have a lesser quality of life because of their disabilities.

There is a significant body of empirical evidence showing that there is a substantial gap between a disabled person’s self-assessment and how their quality of life is judged by folks that have never experienced their disability.

This is because those assessing “quality of life” and forming conclusions regarding their assessment for disabled members of our society are largely those who do not know about nor service those with disabilities. Further, the debates currently happening regarding health care rationing unveil how our society devalues vulnerable populations and the discrimination they are at risk of facing during this pandemic.

Eugenics isn’t a relic from World War II; it’s alive today, embedded in our culture, policies, and practices. It is imperative that experts and decision-makers include and collaborate with communities disproportionately impacted by systemic medical racism, ageism, and ableism, among other biases.

I found this article very eye-opening and illustrative of the impacts our society’s views towards those with disabilities have on their level of care and valuation in the current pandemic. Those with disabilities are at high risk of discrimination and being left behind during this pandemic, as the issues of medical supply rationing uncover our society’s inherent ableism and positioning of disabled bodies.