Guess who got the most responses? Researchers discovered that the women with the LGBT leadership received a whopping 30 percent fewer callbacks than the other women.
Apparently, the association with an LGBT organization alone is enough to scare off some potential employers.
According to Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), “queer†is an umbrella term that includes anyone who wants to identify as queer or who feels like their gender or sexuality doesn’t fit societal norms. “This, therefore, could include the person who highly values queer theory concepts and would rather not identify with any particular label: the gender fluid bisexual, the gender fluid heterosexual, the questioning LGBT person, and the person who just doesn’t feel like they quite fit in to societal norms and wants to bond with a community over that,†says PFLAG on its website.
While the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says it’s illegal for employers to discriminate against a person based on sex (including whether they’re transgender) and their sexuality, it’s tough to prove whether that was a factor in the hiring process.
Twenty two states and Washington, D.C. have laws that say employers can’t fire employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, but that still leaves the majority of LGBTQ Americans up a creek unless they’re game for a big legal battle.
While we’ve made many strides against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, it’s clear that we still have a long way to go.