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Companies need to do better at stopping anti-LGBTQ+ job discrimination — which the Supreme Court has ruled illegal, the think tank notes.
Although the Supreme Court has outlawed anti-LGBTQ+ job discrimination, it still happens — as many people are finding after they come out at work, says a new study by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law.
“Employment discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity have been widely documented,” says the report’s executive summary. “Recent research has found that LGBTQ people continue to face mistreatment in the workplace, even after the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2020 that discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” That ruling came in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County.
Such discrimination is bad for everyone, the study notes: “Experiences of workplace discrimination and harassment negatively impact employees’ health and well-being, as well as their job commitment, satisfaction, and productivity. These primary effects can, in turn, result in higher costs and other negative outcomes for employers.”
The study is based on a survey of 1,902 employed LGBTQ+ adults conducted in the summer of 2023.
“Almost half (47%) of LGBTQ employees reported experiencing discrimination or harassment at work (including being fired, not hired, not promoted, or being verbally, physically, or sexually harassed) because of their sexual orientation or gender identity during their lifetime,” the summary states. The rates of reported discrimination and harassment were higher among transgender and nonbinary workers than cisgender ones, and higher among people of color than white employees — about twice as likely within the past year.
Many LGBTQ+ workers said they stay closeted at work to avoid negative experiences. Nearly half said they were not out to their current supervisor, and one-fifth were not out to any of their coworkers.
“LGBTQ employees who were out to at least a few coworkers and/or their supervisor were three times more likely to report experiencing discrimination (39% vs. 12%) and more than twice as likely to report harassment (42% vs. 17%) than those who were not out to anyone at work,” the summary says. “LGBTQ employees who were out to at least someone in the workplace were four times more likely to have experienced discrimination in the past year (12% vs 3%).” One-third said they’d left a job at some point due to anti-LGBTQ+ actions by employers.
These findings underscore the need for better protections against discrimination, according to the Williams Institute. “Discrimination and harassment negatively impact both employees and employers,” lead author Brad Sears, founding executive director at the Williams Institute, said in a press release. “More robust protections, including monitoring and enforcement, are needed to ensure that LGBTQ people, particularly trans and nonbinary people and LGBTQ people of color, are fully protected from discrimination and harassment in the workplace.”
