Facts about Workplace Discrimination

• Workplace fairness is the number one issue for callers to Lambda Legal's Help Desk, with over 1,000 people calling about workplace rights in 2006.
• In Lambda Legal's 2005 Workplace Fairness Survey, 39 percent of respondents reported experiencing some form of discrimination or harassment in the workplace during the past five years because of their sexual orientation.
• Although people with HIV are protected from discrimination by the Americans with Disabilities Act and similar state laws, they still experience workplace discrimination due to confidentiality breaches, unjustified fears about transmission and refusals to provide reasonable accommodations.
• From 2002–2006, HIV-related employment discrimination claims have were nationally with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at an average rate of nearly one per day.
• Even though recent polls show that close to 90 percent of people in the United States think lesbians and gay men should have equal rights in the workplace:
  • There is still no federal law that expressly forbids sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination in the private sector.
  • There is no statewide law providing express protection against sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace in 32 states.
  • There is no statewide law providing express protection against gender identity discrimination in the workplace in 42 states.