If any of you have ever heard of the "
Vosem Chart" it ranks your political beliefs along three axes (with eight possible combinations - the name "Vosem" comes from the Russian word for "eight"). I decided to use a similar idea to come up with a system to indicate how well a particular employment path (whether with a specific company or in general) would fare for a TG/TS individual. With each of the grades I give each "axis" either a + (favorable), - (unfavorable), or x (neutral or variable). Feel free to share your thoughts and/or rating ideas here.
The first axis is what a lot of us look at first - how accepting the environment is of trans* people and the protections available. In general the more educated your workplace peers, the more modern/high-tech the work is, the more urban and/or secular the environment, and the more progressive the company is on social policies the more likely this would be rated a plus. While this is of course an important factor, the other two axes can be just as important (and in some cases more so) IMO.
The second axis rates how "gender-segregated" the work environment is. Factors that can get this a negative ranking are physical separation of genders in the environment (e.g. sports teams, single-sex schools/dorms, prisons), a dress code/standard of appearance that is very gender-dependent (this will tend to be true in professional/formal dress code environments), or different expectations on the roles between men and women. On the other hand a gender-neutral dress code and/or equal expectations between the sexes will give this a positive rating. For those looking to present as an "androgyne" or transition on-the-job this can be a major factor.
The third axis gauges the "stealthability" with a particular company or career path. Careers where your past (and even medical records) can be investigated heavily will get a negative ranking, while those with a minimal or no background check (typically not going beyond checking your credentials) will get a positive ranking. This factor is mainly rated on how well you can be stealth to those that matter - your co-workers and those who make hiring decisions for you; if you can get around the procedural barriers by for example giving the details of your past identity straight to the criminal records bureau (as is the official rule in some places like the UK) that will help this rating for jobs where your criminal history is a major factor (e.g. teaching or other jobs working with children).
Probably the worst career choice for transfolk (at least in the U.S.) is the military which gets a --- rating (unfavorable on all three axes). As I hinted to in this
post, a typical blue-collar setting has a -+x rating - the workers are less likely to be up on accepting LGBT people in general, but it is somewhat easier to physically present in a gender-neutral matter than in many white-collar environments (namely when it comes to the dress code, since with blue-collar work your attire is usually dictated more by physical requirements than gender-based customs). In
another post, I suggested that freelancing is a good path for some transpeople since in many cases it gets a rating of x++; you may not have the official legal protections and you'll likely have some (but not all) clients with transphobia, but it is typically easy to present in an androgynous or gender-variable way (if you have a legal/DBA name that can go either way and can easily pass for either gender you could even present as a female in some cases and a male in others if you're so inclined) or (as long as you've legally changed your name for tax reasons and your portfolio is under it, and your work doesn't involve "sensitive" items) to be stealth. Larger companies are more likely to get a + in the first axis than smaller ones (since a larger company is more likely to be enlightened on LGBT issues), while the opposite is true in the third axis (since smaller companies are less likely to do an extensive background check than larger ones).
