Monserrath Aleman at the Pride Parade in Baltimore on June 16. Courtesy photo of CASA.
When Monserrath Aleman left Honduras for a better life in Baltimore, she was leaving behind a country where Human Rights Watch said LGBTQ individuals are “frequently targets of discrimination, extortion, and violence” from gangs, the police and the public.
What she found in Baltimore, where her cousin lives, was a different kind of prejudice.
Aleman, 36, a transgender woman who’s lived in Baltimore for two years, said she’s endured “indirect” racism trying to obtain full-time employment in Maryland cleaning offices and homes.
While she did not originally have a work permit, she has one now – but is not getting calls for jobs that she said her friends who are not trans are getting. To earn income, Aleman said her cisgender friends, whose identity aligns with their sex assigned at birth, have brought her with them on jobs.
“It’s been my friends that have seen my situation. They will pay me to help them clean [a] house,” she said in Spanish through a translator last week.
As thousands of Marylanders, including Aleman, celebrate Pride Month, separate reports from the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights and the Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs indicate there’s still discrimination against people in that community.
The Commission on Civil Rights, an independent agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws and oversees discrimination cases focused on employment, housing, public accommodations and state contracts, said in its 2023 report that it handled a total of 661 cases in 2022, up from 623 the year before. That report highlighted a number of cases, including two involving LGBTQ individuals.
In one case in Montgomery County, coworkers allegedly harassed a colleague who identified as a transgender woman. After no “corrective action” was taken by management, the parties agreed to a $35,000 monetary settlement for the complainant.
In another, a finance manager at a car dealership in Baltimore allegedly made a derogatory comment about a customer’s sexual orientation. Afterward, the manager refused to speak to the customer and denied his preapproval to purchase a vehicle. The customer filed a complaint with the commission and the parties agreed to a $2,000 settlement.
The civil rights commission also said that there were 465 hate/bias reports in the state in 2022. In comparison, last year’s document noted 388 reports made in 2021.
A look at the numbers
According to a 2023 report by the state’s Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs, those in the trans community experienced some of the most challenges, including “alarmingly high rates of violence and victimization.”
About 78% of 750 participants in a Maryland Trans Survey reported that they experienced verbal insults or abuse at least once in their lives; 55% experienced threats of violence at least once; 46% experienced physical and/or sexual assault at least once.
The survey was conducted between May and December 2023. Of the respondents, 43.3% identified themselves as non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid or agender; 29.3% as men/transmasculine; 24.7% men/transfeminine; and 2.4% another gender identity.
However, the majority of those who surveyed were white at 76.3%. The other races were 7.7% multiracial; 6.4% Black; 4.8% Asian or Pacific Islander; 3.6% “Hispanic/Latinx;” and 1.2% another identity.
The report acknowledged measures the commission supported that were signed into law this year:
Senate Bill 134 – Creates a correctional ombudsman office to assess programs by the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
Senate Bill 119 – Places gender-affirming care under the state’s category of legally protected care.
House Bill 602 – Prohibits employer discrimination against a person based on their sexual orientation.
Although there’s been “positive legislative developments,” M Pease, director of research and assessment with Trans Maryland, said this month there remains more work to do.
For example, the trans survey notes some people had challenges in health care, such as the 85% who experienced barriers accessing “trans-related surgery.”
“When those larger institutions are not designed for inclusion or not designed to affirm, support, uplift members of marginalized communities, it is no wonder that we still see experiences of discrimination, we still see instances of violence and harm within our communities,” said Pease, who served as lead author of the survey.
“Maryland on paper might look like a more positive state for the community, and I think in some ways that is still true, we still have a long way to go,” Pease said. “We shouldn’t become complacent as we consider the way that we can continue to make our state safer for members of the community.”
The LGBTQIA+ commission made eight recommendations for state agencies including that all staff and the public are aware of the state’s anti-discrimination laws, requiring at least six hours of mandatory cultural humility and competency training for new and existing employees annually, and collecting data on sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual characteristics in state surveys “to better understand the challenges and needs of LGBTQIA+ communities.”
Meanwhile, Aleman wants policymakers to make it as easy for people in the LGBTQ community to obtain employment as it is for anyone else.
“We are essential,” she said. “We have the ability to work because we have the right to work in whatever job, whatever place of employment, whatever company there is. We’re asking for their support.”
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