Employment Non-Discrimination Act Research Articles

Employment discrimination and labor market protections for sexual minorities in Brazil

This study estimates the impacts of an employment non-discrimination act (ENDA) for sexual minorities in Brazil. We contribute new evidence on ENDA impacts for sexual minorities in a distinct context from the current literature. Additionally, this is one of few studies to document labor market gaps by sexual orientation in Latin America. In this paper, we first present evidence of labor market gaps in employment, formal sector employment, hours worked, income and hourly earnings for lesbian and gay individuals in Brazil. For the same groups, we then estimate the impact of Brazilian legislation forbidding employment discrimination based on sexual orientation on these same labor market outcomes. Regarding initial pre-policy labor market gaps, conditioning on individual and work-related controls, we see that lesbian women experience wage premiums compared to straight women, while gay men experience wage penalties compared to straight men. We then estimate robust evidence that the implementation of employment protections increased income for gay men. For lesbian women, we estimate evidence of post-policy reductions in employment, but higher income and hourly earnings for those still working. Focusing on a Latin American country, we find many impacts consistent with the more recent existing evidence on ENDAs for sexual minorities.

Failing to protect: a historical analysis of The Employment Nondiscrimination Act

As of October 2019, it is legal for employers to fire a worker if they identify as LGBT. The Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) was a proposed bill that would have prohibited LGBT discrimination in the workplace, but continuously failed to be enacted by Congress. This paper explores ENDA’s tempestuous history by conducting a historical analysis of the bill, Congressional Records, and congressional hearings, to identify the factors which influenced ENDA’s outcome. The findings indicated support for historical contingency theory because the historical conditions affected (1) the capacity of LGBT groups to advance their interests, and (2) the state managers and their decision to enact ENDA. These findings are important because it offers a clearer history of LGBT politics and shows how cultural attitudes, state policies, and state actors influenced ENDA’s policy formation process. Specifically, the analysis highlights that the historical conditions of the years when ENDA was proposed affected its failure to be enacted.

Not All Laws are Created Equal: Legal Differences in State Non-Discrimination Laws and the Impact of LGBT Employment Protections

In this paper, I study the impact of legal differences in state employment nondiscrimination acts (ENDAs) for gay men and lesbian women on labor market outcomes. Employing a DDD approach, I show that enacting an employment non-discrimination act is associated with increased wages of gay men and decreased employment of lesbian women. If all employment non-discrimination acts are treated as identical, these laws increased the hourly wages of gay men by 2.7% and decreased the employment of lesbian women by 1.7% and their hours worked by 0.7 hours. The results show that the strength of the law can result in heteroge-neous effects of the laws for gay men, but not for lesbian women. ENDAs with both punitive and compensatory damage provisions resulted in smaller wage increases for gay men than ENDAs with only compensatory damage provisions. ENDAs with longer statutes of limitations for complaints increased the employment of gay men, whereas laws with shorter statutes of limitations decreased employment. Based on the estimates from the state-level employment non-discrimination acts, I argue that extending federal protections under Title VII would lead to a small increase in the wages of gay men, but would significantly reduce the employment of lesbian women.

Transforming Citizenships: Transgender Articulations of the LawIsaacWest. New York: New York University Press, 2014.

Transforming Citizenships: Transgender Articulations of the Law Isaac West. New York: New York University Press, 2014.When transactress Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black) graced the cover of Time magazine a year ago for the cover story Transgender Tipping Point, it became more than apparent that transgender identity, rights and representations were achieving unprecedented visibility and acceptance in the United States. The recent revelations of Caitlyn Jenner and the accompanying celebration of her transformation have even more thoroughly popularized as well as legitimized trans presence and participation in American society. Critics of assimilationist, neoliberal political strategies might view these events more grimly, as manifestations of homonormativity. In this view, the culture industry's inclusion of trans identity exploits the desire to be normal and, far from challenging status quo norms of identity, fosters loyalty to consumer capitalism, allegiance to the state, and divests Jenner, Cox, and their fans of any kind of oppositional agency.A central thread of Isaac West's Transforming Citizenships: Transgender Articulations of the Law remains to contest the assumption that trans struggles for equal rights and full inherently pander to heteroand homonormativity, that striving for equal rights inevitably coincides with embracing sameness, erasing difference, and undermining oppositional agency. The historical examples and theoretical explorations of Transforming Citizenships provide compelling evidence that transgender struggles for equal rights can result in normative assimilation, but they can also change public, mainstream perceptions of citizenship and the identities encompassed by that label.Transforming Citizenships is a remarkable book for many reasons, in particular, West's dual commitments to practice and theory. Engaging in what he calls cultural studies of the law, West remains as concerned with the intricacies of concrete crusades for justice and political battles over identity as in theoretical disputes in trans, queer, and cultural studies. The book focuses on trans gender struggles for civil rights in recent US history: Debbie May ne's concerted campaign in 1950s Los Angeles to be granted legal status as a woman, which involved seeking arrest and publicity to push the point; the work of People in Search of Safe and Accessible Restrooms (PISSAR), a coalition of genderqueer and disability activists seeking reform of public restrooms at the University of California-Santa Barbara; Congressional tussles over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which included gay congressman Barney Frank's willingness to sacrifice gender identity protections to insure coverage of lesbians and gay men versus the resounding support of LGBT groups for trans inclusion; and the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance's (INTRAA) efforts to include trans protections in Bloomington's Human Rights Ordinance. …

The Fourth Demand

Copyright © 2016 Michigan State University. Alyssa A. Samek, “The Fourth Demand,” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 3.1 (2016): 148–156. ISSN 2327-1574. All rights reserved. In her dissent in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote, “The Court’s determination that [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] RFRA extends to forprofit corporations is bound to have untoward effects. . . . The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”1 Efforts to craft exemptions for religious businesses and organizations to avoid compliance with laws ranging from the Affordable Care Act to employment discrimination have ramped up, increasing concerns about the potential efficacy of antidiscrimination legislation. One of the best examples of this concern is the Employment NonDiscrimination Act (ENDA) legislation, designed to prohibit discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The most recent version of ENDA contained an organizational religious exemption, and in an historic move in the long and winding life of the legislation, major advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and Transgender Law Center withdrew their support. In a joint letter, they called the provision for religious organizations “discriminatory,” and “unprecedented in federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination,” which “could provide religiously affiliated organizations— including hospitals, nursing homes and universities— a blank check to engage in workplace discrimination against LGBT people.”2 Rea Carey, the executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, added that once a company can claim “biblical principles” to ban certain forms of birth control, as in the Hobby Lobby case, “it’s a hop, skip and a jump to an interpretation that a private company could have religious beliefs that LGBT people are not equal or somehow go against their beliefs and therefore fire them.”3

Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell as a “Policy Window”

This paper argues that the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) in the United States represents a policy window that would lend itself to the passage of a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Although attitudes towards lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers are changing, no comprehensive federal legislation to protect these workers currently exists. Using John Kingdon's policy analysis model, our paper considers the history and evolution of public attitude that led to the repeal of DADT. Further, how this evolution has opened a window of opportunity for the passage of a federal ENDA is also considered. Implications for workplace advocates, including considerations for policy, practice, and research, are explored.

President Obama and Gay Rights: The 2008 and 2012 Presidential Elections

AbstractWe examine the role and potential impact of gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) voters in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. We look at trend data from 1990 to 2010 to assess the fluctuations in support for the Democratic Party by GLB voters, specifically a substantial decrease in support during the 2010 midterm elections. We use data from the 2008 election to assess the estimated contribution the GLB vote made toward President Obama's margin of victory in key battleground states. Looking at the Obama administration's record on gay rights, specifically the failure to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), we argue that the Democratic Party could be held accountable in the 2012 election for their failure to provide protection from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Potentially the 2012 election will be closer than the 2008 race, highlighting the importance of the GLB vote to President Obama's reelection in key states. We argue that if President Obama incorporates strong support for ENDA into his reelection platform, the Democratic Party has the chance to recapture the GLB votes it lost in 2010 and maintain enough of the 2008 electoral votes that led to President Obama's victory.

Why Employment Discrimination Matters: Well-Being and the Queer Employee

Queer people experience poor well-being in many workplaces, yet employment non-discrimination legislation providing comprehensive federal protection from employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation has failed to materialize over the last three decades. Current proposals for a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) do not fully protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) workers, especially in states that already have better protections. This conceptual article considers the well-being of queer employees within the context of human rights, the impact of historic queer employment discrimination cases, and the impact of historic legislative action. Current strategies for protecting queer employees at the federal level have failed. Suggestions for creating change in the workplace will be explored.

The Problem, Policy, and Political Streams of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009: Implications for Social Work Practice

Protection from employment discrimination has been a long battle waged by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community and allies. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) of 2009 could provide comprehensive federal protection from employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation. In this article, John Kingdon's framework for policy analysis is used to explore the federal ENDA.

EVERYWHERE ARCHIVES

EVERYWHERE ARCHIVES

A Defining Moment in Civil Rights History? The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Trans-Inclusion, and Homonormativity

This article traces the history of the struggle for trans-inclusion in the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), focusing in on the decision to take gender identity protections out of the 2007 ENDA. It situates this struggle in the larger histories of the national mainstream gay and lesbian movement and the emergence of visible trans activism in the 1990s. The author argues that the decision to take gender identity protections out of the 2007 ENDA should be understood as part of the wider record of compromises and alterations made to the bill, which must be contextualized alongside the move within the national mainstream gay and lesbian movement toward homonormative politics and strategies.

Expecting Bodies: The Pregnant Man and Transgender Exclusion from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act

EXPECTING BODIES: THE PREGNANT MAN AND TRANSGENDER EXCLUSION FROM THE EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMINATION ACT In April 2008, news about an Oregon man's impending parenthood spawned a media tsunami across the United States and even internationally. Is Six Months reported CBS news. Man Speaks Out, announced People magazine as it hyped the first published show-all pictures. Pregnant Man Is Feeling Swell, punned the New York Post. ABC news highlighted his television debut in its story 'It's My Right to Have Kid,' Man Tells Oprah. but She's a Man, headlined the Sydney Morning Herald. Pregnant, yes-but not a man, huffed an editorialist in the International Herald Tribune. The riveting lead drew readers and viewers further into the story. It was usually in the second paragraph that authences were provided with an explanation. The pregnant man was Thomas Beatie, a man who had had top surgery and been on hormone therapy but had stopped taking testosterone in anticipation of getting pregnant. A quick and unscientific survey of the blogosphere indicates that the news was met with disbelief, curiosity, revulsion, annoyance, indifference, and, less often, celebration. Some bloggers felt that she was still a woman; others thought transitioning should mean Beatie had forfeited his right to give birth; still others (usually women) expressed annoyance at all the attention the first was getting. A small proportion seemed to have no problem getting their mind around the idea. The story originally came to light at the end of March, when Beatie published a first-person account in the Advocate, a Time-like weekly magazine marketed to the U.S. gay community. In that essay, Beatie describes the travails he and his wife went through as they tried to find medical professionals who would work with them. Some refused to treat Beatie because of their religious beliefs; one physician told Beatie he would have to shave his beard; a third consulted with his hospital's ethics board and then turned him away (Beatie 2008). For trans people in the United States, much of Beatie's narrative resonated with their own experience. While it is rare, but not unheard of in trans communities, for people who have transitioned to give birth, his larger story of discrimination in the health care industry is depressingly familiar. T. Benjamin Singer has studied the inability of many medical professionals to provide appropriate care to people whose somehow exceed conventional expectations. He examines the terror engendered by the unknown through a frame he labels the transgender sublime, which he describes as the conceptual limit to a service-provider's ability to recognize the legibility and meanings of trans identities and bodies (2006, 616). The common sense of gender says that birth sex, gender identity, and the secondary sex characteristics that later develop will all be in alignment. But the histories, spatial arrangements, and physical terrains of trans people's can confound conventional expectations. Some are modified through hormones, various types of gender reassignment surgeries, or both, to produce culturally commensurate with gender identities. In those cases, the perceived incongruence comes only from knowing the history of that individual's body. Other bodies, however, have unexpected configurations in their particular geographiesfor example, breasts with penises for some, male chests with vaginas in others-that produce a dissonance. (This dissonance, to be clear, belongs not to the trans body but to those gazers who have conventional gender expectations.) The more easily read and specific physical terrains of bodies, such as the presence or absence of facial hair, baldness, or patterns of musculature, can add a third layer of potential contradiction. (Ironically, these configurations of geography and terrain often are determined by one's lack of access to medical care. …

Straight talk about gays in the workplace

Establish inclusive policies to increase productivity and profitability!Until recently, the topic of diversity in the workplace had been limited to race and gender issues. In the past decade, however, there has been a growing awareness that sexual orientation is also a valid component of diversity. Even more importantly, the inclusion of this aspect of diversity and workplace education about it in organizational policy and programs are positive, revenue-enhancing actions for business organizations. This is true whether the organization in question is a municipal employer, a college/university, a nonprofit, or a private sector employer.The first edition of Straight Talk About Gays in the Workplace was the only book available to address sexual orientation for employers concerned about this aspect of diversity. This new edition is still the only book to do so. The book's approach is positive and practical, offering not only the 'why'and the 'what', but also the 'how-to', with strategies and tools to improve any workplace relative to this part of human resources. This new edition is fully updated with state-of-the-art information on: domestic partner benefits (DPBs) effective education regarding sexual orientation in the workplace marketing opportunities generated by full inclusion why full inclusion makes good business senseStraight Talk About Gays in the Workplace, Second Edition clarifies the details and impacts of: workplace education about sexual orientation tax codes concerning partner benefits the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) the Hate Crimes Bill. . . and provides resources including: all applicable tax codes concerning partner benefits sample affidavit for partner benefits sample announcement for partner benefits sample termination form for partner benefits detailed information on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) detailed information about the Hate Crimes Bil a model for successful education focused on sexual orientation Web resources for more information . . . and more!After reading this volume, you will be able to write a business plan, proposal, or justification for policy/program improvements that will benefit your business. Straight Talk About Gays in the Workplace, Second Edition is especially valuable in today's job market where it is increasingly difficult to find and keep qualified job candidates.

Congress Addresses Bills With Mental Health Impact

Congress Addresses Bills With Mental Health Impact

ENDA Before it Starts: Could Gay or Lesbian State Employees Sue Their Employers for Damages Under the Proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act, in Light of the Court's Recent Section 5 Jurisprudence?

The proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would prohibit much employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This Article considers whether ENDA would pass muster as appropriate legislation under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, thus allowing plaintiffs to seek retrospective relief against state governments in their capacity as employers. Part I lays the foundation for this examination by considering the Supreme Court's Section 5 jurisprudence, paying special attention to the cases beginning with City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997). Part II applies that jurisprudence to the recent versions of ENDA. The recent Section 5 cases require an examination of the suspicion with which the Court regards the underlying conduct being restricted. Applying that test to ENDA would require examining how seriously the Court takes sexual orientation discrimination. This, in turn, requires consideration of Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996). The challenge is to translate Romer's concern about anti-gay state action into Section 5 language. It mirrors the Court's approach in Board of Trustees v. Garrett, 121 S.Ct. 955 (2001), in which the Court held that Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act was not appropriate Section 5 legislation, even though it had previously found an equal protection violation when a city discriminated against the mentally disabled. After considering whether Romer means that all sexual orientation-based employment discrimination would fail the rational basis test, and reaching an equivocal conclusion, Part II continues by examining whether ENDA is sufficiently limited so as to prohibit only that discrimination that the Court would in fact consider unconstitutional. The Article suggests that ENDA's limitations and exceptions potentially limit its application only to conduct that would in fact be unconstitutional if performed by a state. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the Court would be willing to announce such a broad constitutional rule limiting sexual orientation discrimination. Thus, the Article continues by assuming that ENDA does in fact go beyond what the Constitution commands, and considers whether ENDA constitutes appropriate prophylactic legislation, going beyond what equal protection requires but sufficiently related to those limits as to satisfy the Court's test of congruence and proportionality. Again, given ENDA's limited scope, it arguably satisfies that test. Part III takes a more prescriptive tone. It offers advice for those interested in ENDA's enactment, suggesting ways in which the bill's drafting, and especially its fact-finding, may maximize chances for its survival as an appropriate expression of Congress' Section 5 power. Part IV concludes by offering some general thoughts on the Court's recent Section 5 jurisprudence, based on the results of the foregoing analysis of ENDA as legislation designed to ensure the equal protection rights of gays and lesbians.