Cal Thompson, 1st Period - Trans in Technology

This article brings up the issue of treatment of transgender people in the workplace, specifically in the computer programming/technology field. Transgender employees are reluctant to negotiate better pay upon being hired because they feel that they are likely to be rejected due to their identity, causing trans employees to be paid less than cisgender employees overall. Many trans people feel the need to hide their identity in the workplace to feel safe. The technology/programming field is, like most, one formerly dominated by cisgender, straight, white men. However, it is also a field full of people attempting to break down these barriers. Even in Texas, where discrimination due to gender identity is not prohibited, some companies are providing health coverage for sex reassignment surgery.

It is hard to be transgender and feel safe, no matter one's situation in life. This society in which we reside is full of bias against minorities. The wage gap is strong evidence of this. Racial, religious, and gender minorities have long been given the short end of the stick regarding wages and respect in the workplace; this is nothing new. Women have been (and still are) harassed, mocked, and reduced to sexual objects. People of color have historically been hired for low-paying jobs (as have women) and been degraded. Transgender people are only now truly able to be open about their identities, and are facing this same discrimination. Even as far as trans representation in the media goes, trans identities are rarely given any form of respect. Look no further than Zoolander 2, in which Benedict Cumberbatch portrays a gender-nonconforming individual who is given no depth and laughed at by the main characters, who conclude, after debate, that he has a "hot dog" rather than a "bun" (this crude innuendo is hardly amusing when one considers its constant application to actual transgender people. Instead of "what's your favourite character from Star Wars," people ask, "What do your genitals look like?"). This movie is labeled as a satire, although I do not believe that it is such in relation to this character. There is no motive in the creation of Cumberbatch's character save for amusement - look at the silly tra**y. Another detail gleaned from this, and most other mainstream portrayals of trans characters, is that the character is portrayed by a white, cisgender man. I found it hard to phrase why this bothered me until finding this quote from Jen Richards, creator of the online series Her Story: "Cis audiences reward [cisgender actors] because they see being trans itself as a performance."

Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/09/06/transgender-people-find-flexibility-barriers-tech/89369436/