LGBT Community Discrimination At The Workplace

Until today, I was not aware that individuals from the LGBT community were discriminated to the point where their jobs were on the line. To this I ask, “Why?” One common phrase used by employers is “Keep your home life and work life separate”. If that’s the case, then why should the employee’s personal life matter? If the individual can fulfill his/her responsibilities and maintain a good work environment, then keeping them will be beneficial for the company.

Stonewall conducted a study in 2015 where they interviewed various healthcare professionals about discrimination in their work place. 1 in every 4-people heard negative remarks from their co-workers about gay, lesbian and bisexual people while 1 in every 5 individuals heard discriminatory language about transgender people. Studies also showed that only 1 in every 6 people would step up and say something about the negative comments (Day-Calder, 2017).

I have respect for the individuals who openly admits to being LGBT or stands up to people who discriminate.

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They show bravery and acceptance, no matter what other people may think or say. Unfortunately, even in 2018, there are a lot of people who are still homophobic and creates an uncomfortable environment for the people around them. It takes courage to confront people, but no one should be ashamed of their sexual orientation. Let people be who they want to be. They are happy and not hurting anyone so there is no reason for people to treat them anything less than equals. According to Title 7 in the Civil Rights Act, it is in fact illegal to discriminate an employee due to religion, sex, race, color or national origin.

However, this rule only applies to employers who have 15 or more employees working 20 or more weeks (Pena, 2018).

The first part of the act is reasonable, but I do not agree with the second part. The number of employees and the weeks they all work should not have an effect on people being treated unfairly. This provides more opportunity for discrimination and makes it seem like the people in the LGBT community are not protected by the law if they work for a small business. LGBT are not asking for “extra civil rights”. These rights should have been given to them in the first place because like I mentioned before, a person’s sexuality has no impact on how well they are able to perform the tasks expected from them at work. It is important for change to happen and to set a good example for the future generations. However, I don’t see this happening any time soon due to various people having mixed feelings about this topic as a whole. Whether it’s due to religious beliefs or people not accepting something that is different from their view of the “norm”, a lot of members from the LGBT community have to keep their sexual orientation a secret to feel protected. I believe that if this happens to any individual, they should get the support they need so they feel like they are in a welcoming environment and never have to hide their true selves from the public. No one quite knows when a drastic change will arise throughout the world, but it is true that we came a long way from how society viewed LGBT ten years ago.