2023/11/28 by Jesse E. Shircliff, Jesse Ezra Shircliff, Bee Hazelwood +7 · 7 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Health Professions · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Demographic economics #Economics #Employment and Welfare Studies #Employment discrimination #Gender studies #Global trade, sustainability, and social impact #Intersectionality #Labor Movements and Unions #Logistic regression #Odds #Political science #Psychology #Race (biology) #Sex discrimination #Social psychology #Sociology #Transgender #Work (physics)
paper · doi:10.1093/socpro/spad057
published in Social Problems 72(2), 643-659 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2023/11/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract Workplace discrimination contributes to economic precarity for trans individuals, and some evidence suggests that barriers to formal employment may contribute to engagement in sex work. This study examines whether particular types of workplace discrimination – including blocked access to jobs and termination due to trans status – represent a pathway into sex work for trans and nonbinary workers conditional upon social status, gender, and race. Our analysis relies on the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS), where we stratify multiple logistic regression models for trans men, trans women, and nonbinary individuals and introduce an interaction term between workplace discrimination and race. We exploit two time horizons in the data for a lifetime analysis and a past-year analysis. We find strong support that trans women and nonbinary individuals are more likely to engage in sex work when they have experienced workplace discrimination compared to trans men. Predicted probabilities show that workplace discrimination amplifies the likelihood of sex work for most trans workers of color compared to those who are white. By contributing to the literature on “bad jobs” and anti-trans workplace bias from an intersectional approach, this study informs debates on anti-discrimination policies and practices that facilitate economic security for trans workers.