DATE: October 16, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG
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TITLE: Hiring bias against transgender women depends on both identity and appearance, field experiment suggests
A recent field experiment provides evidence that transgender women face steep penalties in the labor market when applying for jobs, particularly when they do not look like a typical cisgender woman. The research indicates that disclosing a transgender identity and possessing physical features typically associated with males both independently reduce a person’s chances of receiving a positive response from employers, and the combination of the two results in a compounded penalty. The findings were posted as a working paper on SSRN and have not yet been peer reviewed.
Transgender women are individuals who were assigned male at birth but identify as women. They often face elevated barriers in the workforce, experiencing lower employment rates and higher rates of poverty compared with cisgender people. A study covered by PsyPost in 2026 suggests that transgender individuals experience higher rates of daily mistreatment and violence than cisgender sexual minorities. A central concept in understanding these experiences is “passing,” which refers to whether a transgender person is perceived by others as cisgender, meaning someone whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Previous economic studies have documented hiring bias against transgender individuals, but they have generally focused on identity alone. Researchers typically sent resumes that indirectly disclosed a transgender identity without showing the applicant’s face, leaving it uncertain whether employers were reacting to the identity itself or to an assumption about what the applicant might look like.
Both labels and looks can shape how transgender people are perceived. For instance, a study covered by PsyPost in 2018 found that potential dating partners labeled as transgender or nonbinary were rated as less attractive than those labeled cisgender, regardless of what they actually looked like. Appearance may matter as well: the paper notes that in a large U.S. survey, about 43 percent of trans women who had socially transitioned reported passing, compared with 71 percent of trans men.
The new study, conducted by Taryn Eames, a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Toronto, sought to untangle these factors. “People with marginalized identities can face pressure to conceal their identity or conform to dominant-group social expectations, sometimes at considerable personal or financial cost,” Eames told PsyPost. “I want to understand whether discrimination reflects someone’s identity, whether they fit those expectations, or how the two interact.” She focused specifically on trans women, whose labor market disadvantages “are well documented but whose causes remain poorly understood.”
To investigate this question, Eames conducted a correspondence study in Germany, a method in which researchers send matched fictitious applications to real employers and track who gets a response. German job applications standardly include a professional headshot and reference letters from past employers, making it possible to realistically test both appearance and identity signals. The study submitted 10,022 fictitious applications in pairs to real job postings across 27 German cities and nine occupations.
The experiment independently varied two signals, starting with the applicant’s headshot. Eames used artificial intelligence to generate 30 matched pairs of “twin” headshots. The passing version depicted a woman who looked typically cisgender, while the non-passing version kept the exact same hair, makeup, clothing, jewelry, and background but altered the facial structure to include more male-coded features. No employer ever received both versions of the same face.
“This study varies physical facial features while keeping gender presentation fixed, including hairstyle, makeup, clothing, and jewelry,” Eames noted. “These features reflect genetics, pubertal development, and access to gender-affirming care—factors often beyond an individual’s control. They are not styling choices an applicant can simply change when applying for a job.”
Second, the experiment varied whether the applicant disclosed a transgender identity. In Germany, a legal name change can leave older professional documents under a previous name. Some fictitious applicants included a years-old employer reference letter under a male name, along with a note explaining that they now use a female first name, giving employers a realistic administrative reason to learn about the transition.
Control applicants all had passing headshots. Some disclosed no name change, while others disclosed a female-to-female change, such as going from Theodora to Thea. These two control groups received positive responses at nearly identical rates, suggesting that employers were reacting to the transgender identity signaled by a male-to-female change rather than to name changes in general.
The results indicated a penalty for both a transgender identity and a non-passing appearance. Among control applicants, 47.6 percent received a positive response from employers, such as an interview request. Applicants who disclosed a transgender identity but had a passing headshot received positive responses at a rate that was 4.1 percentage points lower, a 9 percent reduction compared to controls, while those with a non-passing headshot but no disclosure saw a 4.6 percentage point drop, or a 10 percent reduction.
The penalty was largest when applicants combined both signals. Applicants who both disclosed a name change and had a non-passing appearance received positive responses at a rate 15.2 percentage points lower than controls, representing a 32 percent reduction. This combined penalty was 6.5 percentage points larger than the sum of the two individual penalties, indicating that identity and appearance compound one another.
“To illustrate, suppose an otherwise comparable, presumably cisgender woman submits 100 applications,” Eames explained. “An applicant with either signal alone would need approximately 110–111 applications to receive the same expected number of positive employer responses. With both signals, she would need about 147 applications.”
“I was surprised by how strongly the two signals compounded each other,” she told PsyPost. “Employers may already infer that an applicant is transgender from masculinized facial features, so the two signals may partly convey the same identity information.”
“I therefore expected the combined penalty to be smaller than the sum of the individual penalties—instead, it was substantially larger,” she continued. “One possibility is that masculinized facial features make a disclosed transgender identity more salient. Another is that employers hold different beliefs or attitudes toward transgender women depending on their appearance.”
The strength of the non-passing appearance also influenced outcomes. Moderately non-passing headshots without disclosure produced a small penalty of about 4 percent that was not statistically significant. Strongly non-passing headshots without disclosure led to a 15 percent drop in callbacks, while pairing a strongly non-passing headshot with identity disclosure resulted in a 36 percent penalty.
The context of the job posting shaped employer behavior as well. Postings listing a male contact person showed higher appearance penalties, whereas postings listing a female contact person showed little penalty for non-passing appearance unless it was paired with a transgender identity disclosure. In exploratory analyses, the penalty for non-passing applicants was larger for jobs involving more customer interaction, and discrimination overall was smaller in tight labor markets, consistent with the idea that heightened competition for workers constrains employers from acting on biased preferences.
To explore the perceptions behind these hiring patterns, Eames conducted a follow-up survey experiment with 1,400 members of the general public from Germany and the United States. Participants evaluated brief professional profiles depicting the same conditions used in the field experiment. They rated the applicants on eight subjective traits, including competence, attractiveness, and emotional stability, alongside their willingness to offer an interview.
Respondents rated non-passing applicants about 1.4 points less attractive on a 7-point scale, regardless of whether a transgender identity was disclosed. Anticipated coworker and customer comfort was lower in every condition: about 0.3 points lower when applicants disclosed a name change but passed, about 0.5 points lower when they did not pass and made no disclosure, and up to about 1 point lower when both signals were present.
Respondents also rated all three groups of transgender applicants as less emotionally stable, with the largest drop when both signals were present. Disclosing a name change led respondents to expect that an applicant would be more likely to raise concerns about workplace comments or behavior she viewed as insensitive or exclusionary, and this expectation was more than twice as strong when disclosure was paired with a non-passing appearance.
Respondents were less willing to interview applicants with either signal, but unlike in the field experiment, the two signals did not compound. Eames suggests that survey respondents may tone down especially large rating differences that could appear overtly discriminatory, particularly when the study’s purpose becomes more obvious.
The survey also provided evidence of different types of bias among different groups of people. Older respondents tended to penalize the transgender identity disclosure more heavily, while socially conservative respondents tended to penalize the non-passing appearance more heavily.
“The main takeaway is that transgender identity and masculinized facial features each carry a hiring penalty, but the combined penalty is greater than the sum of the two separate penalties,” Eames said. “In other words, employers penalize the same facial features more heavily when an applicant is known to be transgender. More broadly, these findings suggest that deviating from dominant-group expectations can be especially costly when someone is known to belong to a marginalized group.”
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. Because the working paper was posted on a preprint server, it has not yet been peer reviewed. The compounding effect was also somewhat sensitive to analytic choices: while statistically significant in the author’s preferred analysis, it was smaller and less consistently significant in alternative analyses that did not adjust for baseline response rates across experimental groups. In addition, the experiment covered lower- to middle-skill jobs that do not require a university degree, measuring initial employer responses rather than final job offers.
Another consideration is that the field experiment relied on static headshots to manipulate appearance. In real life, whether a transgender woman passes depends on a wider array of traits, such as voice, height, and body proportions, meaning the study may underestimate overall in-person penalties. The direct penalty associated with non-passing headshots might also partially reflect broader biases against perceived unattractiveness, which often intertwines with traditional gender norms. And the survey respondents were members of the general public evaluating brief profiles, not hiring managers making real decisions.
Facial feminization surgery, which reshapes facial bones and soft tissue to create more typically female features, is one form of gender-affirming care that can affect whether a trans woman passes. “Understanding these sources of discrimination also yields policy implications: barriers to gender-affirming care—particularly a lack of insurance coverage for facial feminization surgery—may have consequences in terms of exposure to discrimination,” Eames said.
However, she emphasized that addressing bias should not rely on changing individuals. “These findings should not be taken to mean that the onus is on transgender women to change their appearance to avoid discrimination,” Eames added. “The goal should be to reduce discrimination while ensuring access to gender-affirming care for those who want it.”
The study, “The Cost of Being Seen: Identity, Non-Passing Appearance, and Hiring Discrimination Against Transgender Women,” was authored by Taryn Eames.
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