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.