“The authors find that, following transition, a statistically significant earnings decrease is experienced by MTFs (-11%) while there are no significant changes to the earnings of FTMs.”
Geijtenbeek and Plug (2018)
“They found that there was a statistically significant decrease of -12% in earnings following MTFs transitioning from male-to-female and an insignificant increase of +7.5% for FTMs following their transition from female-to-male.”
Schilt and Wiswall (2008)
“these papers provide evidence consistent with a traditional cisgender pay gap, with ‘maleness’ enjoying an earnings premium over ‘femaleness’ in the workplace. These findings also jibe with qualitative research on FTMs experiences of transitioning while in the workplace, where they report feeling more respected and their human capital more highly valued following transition to male”
Connel (2010), Dozier (2005), Schilt (2006).
“The wider social science literature has documented greater negative feelings and prejudice against MTFs compared with FTMs, particularly by cisgender men.”
“The incomes of MTFs who begin living full-time as female at a younger age are lower than those who wait, while the incomes of FTMs who begin living full-time as male at a younger age are higher. These findings are consistent with the wider research on the differences in labour market returns experienced by cisgender men and women.”
Matthew Shannon (2022)
These are all important studies! They also all have their flaws, and some are being misrepresented within the context of this post.
For example, the Schilt and Wiswal 2008 study only consists of 18 MtF workers and 25 FtM workers. This is an incredibly small sample size that cannot be used as representative of larger trends.
In the Geijtenbeek and Plug 2018 study, they find that "FTM workers earn significantly less than other men and MTF workers earn significantly more than other women." This contradicts other wage pay studies that show trans people of all genders earn less than cis people.
Also, important to note that this study only observes, "those transsexual individuals who go through hormone replacement therapy, sex reassignment surgery, and the legal process of changing one’s administrative gender." This is absolutely not representative of trans people in general. Particuarly in a country such as The Netherlands - where this study takes place - and where medical and legal transition is more accessible than in many other countries.
Your third paragraph is a quote of a paraphrase, making it hard to determine where exactly it came from.
The Matthew Shannon 2022 study I feel is the most misrepresented within the context of this post. The quote you gave is accurate, but the same paper says, "those who were assigned female at birth have significantly lower incomes and are more likely to work part-time than those assigned male at birth." So even with the advantages gained by transitioning young for FTMs, the overall trend is still that they earn less than those assigned male at birth.
These studies do show some interesting patterns! It's undeniable that being legally male and being percieved as male in the workplace has its benefits, and that includes for some FTM workers. But the context with which you presented these studies was dishonest, making it appear as is this is a trend that applies to trans people more broadly, when in reality is applies to much more particular groups. It also leaves out the fact that trans men are still disadvantaged in comparison to cis men.
I recognized the Matthew Shannon one and remembered I had a screenshot showcasing some of the data
The weighted average yearly income of trans women in this study was $53,550 and $38,130 for trans men
Researchers found that their first hypothesis in "Cultural and Personally Endorsed Stereotypes of Transgender Men and Transgender Women: Notable Correspondence or Disjunction?" (Link)— that "the cultural stereotype of transgender women was expected to be significantly more negative than that of transgender men based on previous research[…] was not supported." Instead, they note that "transgender men were found to be subject to a more strongly negative cultural stereotype than were trans women." It also notes that there are studies that found trans women face more prejudice, while another had found no difference. The second hypothesis, the theory that participants personal endorsement of stereotypes against trans women would be stronger, was also not supported by the data. However, there is an overrepresentation of cis women in the sample (75%)
oh hey this mirrors some similar results found in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey
crunching the numbers (with a few variations; obviously since we don't have the raw data we can't 100% rely on these estimates, but there are still certain conclusions that are mathematically impossible. I just took the low and high ends of each category. the distribution might look totally different, but based on one of the tables towards the beginning that shows the full income breakdowns, it seems like every category skewed to the lower ends in a fairly even way, so I don't think this kind of estimating is going to be dramatically inaccurate. just don't take these numbers as gospel. which you shouldn't be doing anyways)
some other notable income-related parts:
