post traumatic stress and working in the male dominated trades ruff draft

I am writing this in response to my trade sister and former electrician trades woman she has a blog too. She worked her way up to being an electrical inspector and she has since retired she also was on the board for many years of trades women Inc I greatly admired her anyway we were talking a couple weeks ago and she wrote out about just the level of stress women in the trades are presented with and especially if you're a lesbian as we are; or different in any other way.  

What she wrote deeply triggered me and reminded me of just how paralyzed I became towards the end in 2013 as I was trying to find my way out after having been in the trades for 23 years or rather my trade. It ended up in homelessness because of the Great Recession and the lack of work. 

 I couldn't get myself to go down to the Union Hall any longer because of the rejection when I went out on the job, it simply got too painful and not until being removed from all of it did I realize how deeply it had affected me. 

There was an electrician friend of mine and we both vowed to get out. We had work together on various jobs in the same union. She took training on computer repair. In between I worked on part time jobs,  one for a candidate halftime and the other for Home Depot in the electrical section but I found out that Home Depot does not hire full time only part time so I burned up a lot of my unemployment. 

I was hoping work would break; but with the Recession there were far fewer contractors in my county;  and the ones that were left basically dictated who they would hire and who they would not no matter the job.  They had a lock on practically all the jobs in the county for a couple years;  and if you couldn't get hired on with them or they wouldn't hire you that is blacklisting then you had no work. 

The best I could get where to get short  calls but nobody can live off of just two weeks of work every couple months. 

After working for Home Depot I was hoping for my next extension and I called unemployment twice in California;  and was told I was eligible for an extension but the last time this woman, a real bitch,  told me I was not,  so I started panicking.  We had to come up with rent. To survive my partner didn't make enough money to support both of us without unemployment. The rents are simply too high. We tried to interview for a roommate through Craigslist that all fell through and we realized we had to get out eventually. My father wouldn't help out and I had nowhere to turn so her mother offered to take us in in Nebraska. 

 I spent 30 years in the Bay Area for my sexual freedom I made my whole life in the Bay Area but I had no family there;  and friendships unfortunately can only sustain so far especially when you're constantly struggling.  

Many of us struggled,  many guys in the union hall had their homes foreclosed on.  In fact many people were going through foreclosures. To put to put it in perspective construction workers were particularly hard hit through the Recession and especially if you're a woman or minority. 

We had up to 25% unemployment in construction this came up from the highest levels including a business manager I talk to for the Iron Workers Union. Normal people had 12% unemployment which is high enough 25% is depression-era numbers like in the 1930s. Surviving several years of this was hard enough in a jobless recovery  Wall street was making the money but not us nor were we getting decent jobs. 

Those of us over 50 were having a huge problem getting the employment for coming back to jobs paying way below what we are worth service sector pay. 

 Well you can't make service sector pay in the Bay Area and survive.  5 people competing for every job even for crappy part time jobs like Home Depot. 

So we packed up I arranged for two of my kitties to be adopted by a mutual friend who had a large house and loved cats and we took three with us. 

We packed up all our worldly goods that would fit into two small u hauls and our vehicles, we left all our furniture behind. I left some of my jewelry, clothes, ritual objects and other valuables as well as my friends, communities and Dianic circles, my whole life.

 I still mourn. It is still is very hard to see the Golden Gate or Bay Bridge on TV and movies especially now that the Super Bowl is being played in the Bay Area dammit but we couldn't make it and we aren't the only ones. 

Sooooo we drove Nebraska and lived with her mother which wasn't easy as also two kids live there in the town of 25000 when I'm used to living in a large metropolitan area with a gay community lesbian community and Pagan community as well as other communities I belong to. I hate there isn't an established out gay community around here or infrastructure for one, or lesbian gatherings of any sort.  They have PFLAG but that's it. It is very very isolating especially coming from the Bay Area very very christianized so no religious diversity. And mostly Republican so I didn't feel understood. 

I found a job at a factory warehouse and I connected with all the former Californians, we reminisced and they told me their stories while I told them mine and I felt immensely sad I felt sad giving up my trade and the money and settling for jobs that pay very little, I felt sad leaving the ocean trees, forests,  the diversity and the bay. 

I have been out on every single job I've been on I would not compromise there no matter what I was told about this being a right to work state and with no laws to protect lesbians and gays from job discrimination I have none the less done better out here work wise then I ever did in California. 

I realized I put up with an immense amount of discrimination on the job as a woman as a big woman as a butch as a lesbian. In the Trades.

I work more steadily here than.I ever did in CA, but there are also far more jobs available. Not good paying ones, but then everyone is pretty much in the same boat, the working class.