This 61-Year-Old Trans Woman Lost Her Job After Coming OutTrans in America, a series of short docume
This 61-Year-Old Trans Woman Lost Her Job After Coming Out
Trans in America, a series of short documentaries produced by the ACLU and Little by Little Films, has a simple aim: to bridge the gap between trans visibility and trans rights in the United States. Through these portraits of three trans Americans, we gain a sense of the enormity of the struggle required to simply exist as a trans person in our country, whether as a six-year-old girl in Texas whose future rights lay in the hands of discriminatory state politicians, or as a 29-year-old Chicago residentwho experiences targeted violence as a Black trans woman.
In this third and final chapter, we meet Jennifer Chavez, a Georgia resident who transitioned at age 51. She has been a master auto repair technician for decades, with a thriving career stemming from her lifelong passion for cars. That passion helped her bond with her son throughout his life, but after Chavez transitioned, the two became estranged. Her transition also resulted in the loss of her job, despite her supervisors claiming she was the best technician the company had.
Chavez’s story is all too common: Across the country, trans people risk unemployment, workplace harassment, and prejudice from family and friends when they come out. Chavez, now 61, is no stranger to this plight, having worked a number of odd jobs since transitioning to make ends meet. In this short film, Chavez also explains how she deals with issues that are rarely discussed in-depth in mainstream media, yet highlight how much harder many trans folks have to work to get by.
