Court decision changes the landscape of LGBTQ+ protections at work

People who are members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities faced a patchwork of workplace protections across the United States until Monday when the Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protected people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The ruling, which applies to three cases, is the first major LGBTQ+ decision from the court since the 2018 retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the previous four major winning opinions affecting those communities.

Nearly 30% of 1,003 LGBTQ+ people surveyed by LinkedIn said they were not out at work as members of those communities.

While Monday’s decision applies civil rights protections to the LGBTQ+ communities across the U.S., worries about discrimination in the workplace will likely remain a concern for years to come.

Nearly 30% of 1,003 LGBTQ+ people surveyed by LinkedIn said they were not out at work as members of those communities. More than 40% of those people said they didn’t think being out at work was necessary, but roughly a third also said they didn’t feel comfortable disclosing it in that setting and that they worried about being treated differently. About a quarter said they worried being out at work would limit their professional opportunities and that their work wouldn’t be supportive of them. Nearly a fifth of respondents said they feared losing their jobs if they were out at work.

Before the decision, LGBTQ+ people in only 22 states and the District of Columbia were protected from workplace discrimination, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Another 11 states offered a mixed bag of protections, covering only sexual orientation or only shielding public employees from discrimination.

LGBTQ+ people faced a different reality in states without protections or comprehensive anti-discrimination laws. A person could wed over the weekend and be legally fired on Monday for marrying a person of the same sex, for example.

The fear was not abstract for many in the U.S. — as exemplified by the cases that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

The first set of cases included in Monday’s historic decision centered on Gerald Lynn Bostock and Donald Zarda, who are two gay men, who said they were fired at their workplaces because of their sexual orientation. The third case involved Aimee Stephens (pictured), who was a transgender woman. She was fired after announcing her transition at her workplace. Zarda and Stephens passed away before the decision was announced on Monday.

The cases centered on the protection from discrimination on the basis of sex in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which some courts have found to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

“An employer who discriminates against homosexual or transgender employees necessarily and intentionally applies sex-based rules,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch for the court in Monday’s decision. He was joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan.

“Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee,” wrote the court. “We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”

LinkedIn’s survey found that nearly a quarter of people who identify as LGBTQ+ were laid off or furloughed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 40% of those people said they think being open as an LGBTQ+ person will affect their job search.

Nearly all respondents said that support for the LGBTQ+ communities was important from a future employer. 

Being out at work appeared to make a difference for many people who are LGBTQ+. More than half said being out at work made them feel more comfortable and authentically them. About a third also said being out allowed them to build better relationships within their professional community and gave them the ability to connect with people like them for support.