Employment discrimination against transgender people and self-esteem.

The evocation of gender identity in company anti-discrimination policies is still very rare. This observation is also true forscientific studies. Very few researches have focused exclusively on transgender employees. Transgender are neither sick nor lesscompetent, and yet, the feeling of being strongly discriminated is shared by many transgender people. Such discrimination and thetype of causal attribution do not remain without any effect on the well-being of the concerned individuals. According to Crocker &Quinn (1998), the attribution of the discrimination to the existing prejudices may be a way to protect one-self from the negativeimpact on self-esteem. In this theoretical scope, the "rejection-identification" model (Branscombe, Schmitt & Harvey, 1999) has beenhighly mobilized. It emphasizes the importance of ingroup identification in the causal relationship between perceived discriminationsituation and well-being. Previous studies which did test this model show that the identification to a certain group can counteract thenegative effects on well-being. Following this theoretical frame, the presented study examines the impact of different types of causalattributions on self-esteem: internal causes (e.g. lack of skills), external causes (e.g. economic crisis), and gender identity relatedissues. For that purpose, an online survey has been created and fulfilled by 110 transgender people. Different scales were used to testthe model: the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, a causal attribution scale, the perceived discrimination of the transgender population inthe workplace scale and a group identification scale. The results show that transgender people feel still highly stigmatized today andattribute, significantly, the causes of their situation to the prejudices they are victim of. Also, in accordance with the “rejectionidentification”model, three links are observed: (1) a negative link between perceived discrimination and self-esteem; (2) a positivelink between perceived discrimination and ingroup identification; and (3) a positive link between ingroup identification and selfesteem.This situation reflects a lack in diversity considerations. Nevertheless, the attribution made to group stigmatization seems toplay a protective role towards transgender people self-esteem.