Dyssonance

Bad combination.

You have situations where people are naked in small rooms next to each other,  where theft is extremely high and profiling base on appearances is pretty much required, where people are hired on the basis of their physical appearance more often than not, and then you add in the whole minimal pay thing.

I used to get picked on by my co-workers because I was often the only person who would help the “tranny” that everyone else spent more time snickering at.  I once wrote someone up for poor customer service because I watched them snickering at the person they were helping.  Definitely a guy, but he flamed something fierce.

I remember a deaf family would come into the store and seek me out to make purchases.  I still have no clue why.  Really.  I feel sorta special — they went out of their way to find me, you see.  One even gave me a birthday card.

The people who have the most bang for the buck in retail are cashiers.  They are treated like crap most of the time, and more frequently they are “stuck on the register” when they have ten things that their boss just reamed them for not getting done.  And they are told to get off the register in code when they have a line of four people.

And they are the place you are least likely to see visibly trans people.

You will see them on occason.  Some places don’t have a problem with it.  Others, like J Crew in NYC, apparently have a huge problem with it.  Even if you are post op.

They just don’t want trans people working for them.  And, if the news reports are accurate, they were proven to be that way when trans candidates who were equally qualified were turned down in favor of cis candidates.

Yeah, seriously. Big enough a deal that Business Week picked up a story from a gay mag regarding it.

The first link has a germane comment to it:

This hippie garbage has to stop. Why should a company be forced to hire people they don’t want to hire, for whatever reason?

I’d think that when a 6″ 2″ “Beth,” complete with Adams apple and pronounced brow, goes to help the women in the changing area, they may become uncomfortable.

People have to stop forcing their crap on others. Becoming a transgendered person is a choice that some people make, knowing that it’s not something that all other people agree with.

I could care less and love a good trannie. Male or female. But I’m sick of people thinking that force will change anything. Education is the key. — anonymous

And it’s apparent the person really isn’t “against” them, but just finds them, well, bad for business.

Which is actually teh thoughts of most hiring managers in most retail stores across the country.  They are afraid that customers will choose to go shop at a different store rather than *possibly* be rung up by a trans person.

The argument in use here is, of course, that other people’s problems are more important. It’s the same argument used in Stanton’s case.

What I find really the key, though, is that the way they say it is “its not me that is prejudiced, it’s my customers”.

Which is horseshit.

And they did it twice.

According to a press release from MRNY, “[Transgender applicant] Julian Brolaski, applied at a 5th Avenue J. Crew store. He was treated brusquely, told to fill out an application and was never called. His testing partner, Leigh Cambre, who entered the store a few minutes later, described a very different experience, ‘I filled out an application, was interviewed on the spot and offered a job soon after.’ A separate pair of testers documented a similar situation.”

And some folks say that they aren’t out to make our lives hard.

yeah, right.

If you have a job, right now, trans or cis, be glad. Be thankful. Because there are millions of other people wanting one — and yours will do.

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