I love how so many have made the "ugly" or "unattractive" employment comment, or, (my favorite) the "hot tranny mess" comment. Because obviously all trans people are ugly. And there's no way trans people could be discriminated against, they're probably all just bitching.

I agree this article raises some questions about the survey's methodology. But as a trans person, I have to say the assumptions people have made in these comments are almost a more accurate indicator of transphobia than this survey could be.

"J. Crew has spent nearly three decades outfitting America's homosexuals in their dandy wardrobe... why aren't you hiring transgender job applicants?"

Isn't there a huge difference between homosexuals (those who are attracted to the same sex) and transgenders (those who change sex, but are not necessarily homosexual). If you're a man who has been changed into a woman and you're attracted to men, doesn't that mean you're straight?

no, it definitely makes you gay.

my parter is openly trans and works at a j.crew store in new york city. just sayin'.

It's J Crew. Preppy New England, traditionally conservative. Retailers are allowed to hire based on appearance in order to promote the brand; what image did these candidates project? The companies in this test are all pretty conservative for the most part. Try M.A.C., Patricia Field, Top Shop...

The bottom line is whether your style matches the brand image the company wants to project, so dress and style accordingly. Most of those companies offer employee discounts and have dress codes that require you to wear the clothes because the reason they hired you is because you look like the catalog.

There are a lot of things that don't seem to be being taken into consideration, here. I'm not saying that these places are in the right in discriminating against transpersons, however, I feel like there are too many variables that aren't being accounted for. For example, how are the testers dressed? This is an incredibly important variable when we are talking about a company so image obsessed that they have a policy policing what their employees can look like and wear. What are their personalities like? Are they speaking to the same people? Did they always go in on the same day? Were there instances where both testers were given an interview? What happened in the interviews? And looking at their results, there are a number of instances where neither applicant was offered a job. What are we supposed to infer from that?

better:

CREW can expect their employees NOT looking like a hot tranny mess.

this is what i want to know: regardless of whether or not j. crew is actually portraying discrimination against the trans-community, why is it that a large number of the gay people posting comments are? trans-people have done nothing to you. it's obvious by a lot of the comments on here, that you (a) don't see us as part of the same community/minority and (b) are extremely ignorant concerning trans-people.

nothing bothers me more than discriminatory gay people. as a trans-person, i voted for marriage equality. i protested for marriage equality. i was kicked out of my house over marriage equality, and i will continue to fight for equal rights of gay and lesbian persons. yet a lot of you make no fucking effort to help the trans-people around you. whether you like it or not, it's lgbT, and we're here to fucking stay.

not all trans-persons look the same. being trans is not the same as being a drag queen or king. we don't always stick out like a sore thumb. if someone is female to male, he more than likely identifies as a man. if someone if male to female, she probably identifies as a woman. if an ftm dates a cisman, THEY ARE A GAY COUPLE. the same goes for a cis and trans women that date one another.

what exactly does a hot tranny mess look like?

appearance is a HUGE factor in some industries.

Retail being one of these.

JCREW can expect their employees looking like a hot tranny mess.

And guess who's first when it comes to probabilities of looking like one?

my comment wasn't meant to be a reply to yours. i unchecked the box, but it posted it as one anyway.

just saying so that you don't feel singled out.

Not to be overly picky about grammar here, but several times times the author of the post uses transgender as a noun, rather than an adjective. You can't say "a transgender applied for a job" in the same way that you wouldn't say "a black applied for a job." It's a transgender PERSON, or a black PERSON.

um, why stop at jcrew and not go after those companies who had an EQUAL track record for not hiring the transgenered? as seen on your poorly non-double-blind 'test'.

yeah, this will go real far with cuomo.

We can't be that far away from a law that prohibits employers from using intelligence or competence as a basis for hiring.

i am in no way trying to deny or downplay that there is retail discrimination that exists. however, just by this article i am not entirely convinced this is a case of such a slanderous accusation.

perhaps the second person had more retail experience? or maybe the second person had an overall, better disposition? more pleasant, more charismatic, better at selling themselves?

this article leaves out a lot of details which unfortunately leads to many holes in this argument.

gbs, you seem to have missed the point that they used matched pairs, so the two applicants will have similar retail experience, charisma, etc. Also, the last paragraph before the table makes it very clear that the two applicants were treated very differently from the beginning, before the potential employers could know anything about retail experience.

moonbeam: the first candidate was not called back, so they would have no idea how good he would be at interviews.

S.K.: because there is real discrimination! How do we know? Because people do tests like this, where they control all the other factors and observe that transgender people are not hired despite being as good as cisgender people.

I agree. I see absolutely no evidence of discrimination. It's likely that the second person was better in the interviews.

"One of the transgender employment testers, Julian Brolaski, applied at the 5th Avenue J. Crew store and 'was treated brusquely, told to fill out an application and was never called.'"

That happens to most applicants, regardless of race or orientation. It's called bad economy, picky employers, unimpressive applicants.

Why do some job applicants insist on using their race, gender, or sexual orientation, to force employers into hiring them?

I definitely saw a transgender (male to female) working at the J Crew in soho maybe a year ago. I remember because I pointed out to my friend what an unattractive female she made.

i'm a little amazed that there's yet to be a lawsuit filed by a guy who wants to do sales (vs. stock) @ victoria's secret.