“Where would transgender people fit in a postgender world?” asks sociologist Kristen Schilt in her exploration of employment discrimination, transgender experience, and the limits of public policy. This book sits just outside the discipline of political science, yet contains useful data and provocative questions for scholars concerned with the politics and policy of gender discrimination, labor relations, and sexuality.
Schilt's primary focus is inequality in the workplace, and she explores how and why gender-related discrimination plays out on the job. The author cares about both individual experiences of inequity and the structural framework that advances the interests of some (men, she hypothesizes) and not others (women). What makes this different from other treatments of the same issue is her focus on the workplace experiences of transmen—men whose gender identity and gender expression are not aligned with the official declaration of gender they received at birth. Schilt posits that transgender peoples' lived experiences in two different genders allows an “outsider-within” perspective whereby “some transmen can see the advantages associated with being men at work while still maintaining a critical view on how this advantage operates, and how it disadvantages women” (p. 9).
Although Schilt, I think, appropriately notes that cisgender people—those whose gender identity aligns with official gender declarations—also have work to do to maintain gender binaries, the focus in this book is on the insider-outsider perspective of the men interviewed. Using interviews with more than 50 people, participant observation, and survey data, the author illuminates the nuances encountered by workers as they understand their gender, negotiate gendered interrelationships with co-workers, and access the institutional structure of their workplaces. Her sample includes people who reveal their gender transitions to co-workers and those who remain “stealth.” The primary focus is on people whose gender identities shift from being recognized by others as women to being recognized as men, a move projected to incur higher status and increased power. Schilt's findings support her expectations. Two-thirds of her study subjects relate several examples in which male workers receive positive reinforcement that they are more astute, more professional, and more adept than female workers. Their incomes and opportunities for advancement increased. The mechanisms of what Schilt calls “natural differences schemas”—in which perceptions of biological binarism support gendered differentiation—reflect and reinforce the structural mechanisms that perpetuate inequality and result in significant disparities in income and power.
For political scientists, the value of this book is threefold. First, it is an effective introduction to the experiences of transgender people, speaking for themselves. With respect and nuance, Schilt presents their interpretations of structural inequality and their own participation as workers. Second, it provides empirical evidence of the perpetuation of gendered inequity in the workplace. This reinforces the political dimensions of labor market disparities and emphasizes the need for political intervention. Third, it offers a foundation for policymaking—particularly regarding antidiscrimination protection for trans people. Through several examples, she demonstrates that protection for gays and lesbians does not extend to trans people; indeed, transphobia within the lesbian, gay, bisexual community can further marginalize legally vulnerable people.
The strengths of Just One of the Guys also provide opportunities for further work for scholars of politics and policy. Although the book is illuminating, its analysis is limited largely to culture and gender theory. Schilt is persuasive that feminist theory needs to reframe constructs of gender to avoid the binary constructions that are particularly harmful to trans people. She implores theorists to explore the ways in which gender is relationally constructed and argues that gender inequality cannot be dismantled as long as binary conceptions of gender remain. The challenge for politics, then, is to move from this more sophisticated theoretical understanding to the innovations of policy and politics that can support institutional and structural changes to promote justice for gendered workers, cis and trans.
Because such complex and important questions are raised, this book will be of interest and of use to a wide variety of audiences, including undergraduates. Schilt asks important questions. The challenge for readers and teachers of her work is to push beyond her focus on gender schemas to understand better the institutional implications and the political possibilities.
