American States where you can be Fired for Being Gay - Facts

Story:

There are still 29 States in U.S where you can be fired for being Gay. And in 34 states it is legal to fire someone solely for being transgender.

Analysis:

The message suggests that there are 29 states in America where people can be fired for being Gay, and in 34 states, it is legal to fire someone for being transgender. Yes, it is a fact, there are no laws in those states to prohibit such discriminative acts.

In U.S, there is no federal law that consistently protects the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) individuals from employment discrimination. In 29 states, there are no laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, and in 34 states that do so based on gender identity. So it becomes legal to fire workers just for being gay or transgender. The map that comes with the message is the list of U.S states which do not have explicit laws to prevent discrimination against LGBT people in the workplace, and so the people living there can be fired for being gay or transgender.

Seriousness of LGBT Discrimination

According to a 2011 study by the Williams Institute, about 40% of all openly LGBT employees have experienced discrimination or harassment at work, and 9% say even said they have lost a job because they were openly gay. LGBT people face serious discrimination in work place, like being denied a promotion, harassment on the job, or even getting fired from their jobs.

States’ Work and Corporate Support

Addressing the seriousness of this issue, 21 U.S states and the District of Columbia have passed laws to stop employment discrimination based on such sexual orientation, and 16 states including D.C. have also prohibited the discrimination based on gender identity.

Even hundreds of corporate companies have enacted policies to protect their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees. According to the Human Rights Campaign, as of April 2013, 88 percent of the Fortune 500 companies had implemented non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation, and 57 percent had policies that include gender identity.

However, there still exist cases of LGBT discrimination in many other states.

Employment Non-Discrimination Act

The U.S Civil Rights Act of 1964 does prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, but the act is mute on discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has proposed this Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to ban workplace discrimination against LGBT people, on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. To learn in detail what this ENDA Act does and does not do, read about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act from the reference section below.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2011 (S. 811) was introduced on 13 April 2011, in 112th Congress session, but was not enacted. It was re-introduced as S. 815 on Apr 25, 2013 and was assigned to a congressional committee on April 25, 2013, to consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole. However, reports suggest that the possibility of passing this ENDA Act is meagre.