What Trans Awareness Week Should Mean at Work

I spent 26 years in the employment business before I started Be The Transformational Change Fund. Our company helped employ people across the US over that time, and if it taught me anything, it's how much of someone's future gets decided in small moments. A twenty-minute interview. One line on a background check.

Whether a person feels safe enough to ask what the job really pays.

I think about that a lot during Transgender Awareness Week, which runs November 13 through 19 this year. Visibility matters and I'm glad there's a week for it. I just don't think it goes far enough if the person being seen still can't get hired, or gets paid less once they are.

We've been asking LGBTQIA+ workers about their jobs for four years now through our Shine the Light survey. The first year, 580 people answered. Last time it was 1,386, from across the country. A lot of what they tell us is getting better. Seventy-four percent said their workplace supports LGBTQ+ employees, up from 56 percent two years before that.

The trans numbers are harder to read. Only 43 percent of transgender respondents strongly agreed they can use the restroom that matches their gender identity at work. Among nonbinary and genderfluid respondents, 51 percent agreed they could use a restroom that fits, compared with 76 percent of respondents overall. About one in five people (18 percent) strongly agreed they'd faced discrimination at work because of who they are. Only about a third said they'd feel comfortable taking a problem to leadership.

I don't know how anyone does their best work while planning the day around a bathroom.

This year's survey is open until November 23. If you're LGBTQIA+ and working, or trying to find work, please take it here. Fewer public surveys collect this kind of information than they used to, and we put every answer to use. If you want to see what past years found, the reports are here.

Two of our programs came straight out of those answers.

The first is OutShine, a free AI interview coach. It covers the usual questions, and it also has you practice the ones people don't warn you about. "Your resume shows a name change. Can you explain?" Or, "We do background checks as part of our hiring process. Is there anything you would like to flag for us beforehand?" Or the interviewer who leans back, says "We treat everyone the same here," and waits to see what you'll do with that. You answer, OutShine coaches you, and you decide how much about yourself you want to share. It works in English and Spanish. By late September people had run more than 400 practice sessions on it. Try OutShine here.

The second is Negotiate Your Narrative, our free course on salary negotiation. Anyone can take the foundation track, and we built a separate Catalyst Track for trans and gender-expansive professionals. A little over 100 people had gone through it by the end of September, and they're already using it at work. You can sign up here: https://www.bethetransformationalchange.org/negotiate-your-narrative

If you follow Miss International Queen USA, you probably know Lo Colby. She won our title in Atlantic City this spring and then went to Pattaya, Thailand, and won Miss International Queen 2026. That's two years in a row for the USA, after Midori Monet won in 2025. People sometimes assume a pageant is all about the crown. Ours spends a full week on leadership and personal development before anyone is crowned, and Lo has put her year toward closing the wage gap. She's the spokesperson for OutShine and Negotiate Your Narrative too, which feels about right.

November 20 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, and we'll be thinking of the people who should still be here. Before then, if this week means something to you, send OutShine to a friend who's job hunting. Or take the survey. Either one helps.

If you believe in the work that we are doing and are able to donate even $5 per month, take a look here and help support our efforts. Learn more here.