Las desventajas laborales de las personas transgénero en Puerto RicoLa sociedad, el Estado y la educación como influencias de las políticas y prácticas en el ámbito laboral

Abstract

Gender is a social construct that intersects our life and definitely more when you transgress the societal idea of gender. This social construct that is considered “natural” results in inequality for all those who do not comply with gender stereotypes. The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to look into the labor market experiences of the TRANS community in Puerto Rico to create an overview of how their right to work is being shattered by the social construct of gender. The research was carried out in the University of Granada, however the interviews were carried out in San Juan, Puerto Rico between 2018 and 2022. These experiences are told from the community's perspective to illustrate what’s going on while job hunting and/or their experiences within organizations. The stories gathered are about their experiences in different situations related to the work environment; they range from creating their CV to their day-to-day experiences in their workplace. This research was possible through qualitative/queer research methodology. The stories that we could gather for this thesis focus on their narrative and their experiences. The data gathered indicates that the labor experiences of TRANS people are majoritarily negative experiences. They show that employment discrimination still exists, even though in Puerto Rico a law prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of gender identity. The results of this thesis have shown that discrimination can come from different levels of hierarchy in organizations: from managerial positions to co-workers and/or clients and it can manifest through different means like insults and outof- place comments and/or physical acts of aggression. To conclude, people interviewed offered some recommendations on how to change this situation and we emphasize that it is important to create a social change in order to protect TRANS lives.