This article is part of SWE Magazine’s Spring 2017 Issue. Download the SWE Magazine app to your smartphone today! Download on the App Store or get it on Google Play.
By Meredith Holmes, SWE Contributor
It may come as a surprise to learn that there are no federal laws explicitly protecting LGBTQ Americans from employment discrimination. People who have been fired, denied promotion, or not hired for jobs because of their sexual orientation or gender identification must navigate an array of inconsistent state and local laws, and employer policies.
Since 1994, a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) — which would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity — has been introduced, without passage, in all but one Congress. The 109th session (2005 to 2007) was the exception, and no bill was introduced that term. As one journalist quipped in a headline, “No ENDA in Sight …”
One option for LGBTQ employees is to file a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Title VII, which prohibits sex discrimination, a strategy that has been available only since July 2015. Several unions and nearly 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities have LGBTQ nondiscrimination policies. Currently, LGBTQ employees of the federal government — the nation’s largest employer — are protected from sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination by the executive order on LGBTQ workplace discrimination, signed in 2014 by President Barack Obama. An executive order has the force of law, but is essentially a policy instruction issued by a president about how the government is to be managed. Presidents may overturn the executive orders of their predecessors.
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