Los Angeles addresses transgender unemployment
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday that the City of Los Angeles has appropriated $290,000 toward reducing the high unemployment rate of transgender residents.
The funds will be allocated by the Workforce Development Board to boost employment services offered by the TransLatin@ Coalition and the Los Angeles LGBT Center and to conduct a needs assessment to help direct efforts to connect transgender Angelenos to training, employment and career opportunities.
Opportunity is for everyone in Los Angeles — no matter who they are or how they identify. This is a city built on diversity and inclusiveness, and this investment puts our values into action. Like everyone else, transgender Angelenos have limitless potential, and deserve every chance to find employment, and succeed in the workplace.
--Garcetti
The unemployment rate for transgender Americans has been measured as twice that of the general population. For trans people of color, the rate is double that again.
Unemployed transgender people are twice as likely to become homeless or turn to street economies (sex work or drugs), 85% more likely to become incarcerated and twice as likely to become infected with HIV.
“This funding will provide training and networking opportunities for the transgender and gender non-conforming community that contribute to Los Angeles having a more diverse, talented, and productive workforce.
--Charles Woo, Los Angeles Workforce Development Board
Comments
Statistics and more statistics . . .
$290,000 is a minor amount of money with respect to an issue that should be of major concern. But, it is a good first step, and I do hope the Workforce Development Board will follow through with other much needed support. You never know when a little help goes a long way, or as the saying goes, Parvis e glandibus quercus or Oaks come from tiny acorns. Warning: This latin site activates an autoplay sound file.
I tend to eschew global statistics, preferring personal experiences, when evaluating the impact of systemic policies, hence, as always: Your mileage may vary.
Back in the day a social worker handling our case "looked the other way" at some critical moments. Her extra help allowed us to get by a bit better than intended by those that wrote the welfare program's rules and regulations. Several years later I learned that she had been "promoted" within the agency to a level from which she could no longer interfere with the system's proper function. It turns out that she was systematically getting people off welfare. Sheesh, how is that anyway to run an agency ‽
This case worker and several like her made life possible for me and many others. This sort of thing happens, hidden from view, all the time. So, while we live in a shitty world in general, there is some reason to have (some) hope.