Now that President Obama has enacted new guidelines to help protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees working for private businesses holding government contracts valued at $10,000 or more as of April 15, many others have begun to expand their own policies without waiting for an act of Congress.
Reporting for BusinessInsurance.com, Matt Dunning also charts the trajectory of what was, perhaps, once the thorniest of issues in the battle for full employment protections: gender identity. “Experts say the federal government devoted considerable energy in 2wo014 to establishing employment protections for transgender workers under existing federal laws. Those efforts culminated in a Dec. 18 statement from the U.S. Department of Justice formally permitting federal regulators and prosecutors to pursue litigation against public employers — but not private employers — for gender identity discrimination claims under Title VII.”
Laura Maechtlen, a partner at Seyfarth Shaw L.L.P. in San Francisco agrees but with one caveat: “What we’re finding is that a lot of employers want to do the right thing, but they feel like they don’t understand the specific issues facing that community, so they’re scared to address it because they don’t want to make a mistake.”
Still, other companies do so only reluctantly. Exxon finally changed their corporate workplace discrimination polices (a direct result of the Obama administration’s efforts) after being recognized as one of the worst Fortune 500 companies for members of the LGBT community to work for.
Meanwhile, the government plans to use Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to aggressively enforce their policies. The EEOC filed federal lawsuits last September against private companies in Michigan and Florida on behalf of employees who allege they were fired after informing their employer they planned to transition from one gender to the other.
Attorney General Eric Holder, a far more aggressive liberal standard bearer, has promised to ensure the acts legitimacy. “This will help to foster fair and consistent treatment for all claimants,” Holder said in a statement. “It reaffirms the Justice Department’s commitment to protecting the civil rights of all Americans.”
