A study released Friday by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender at the UCLA School of Law has found that an estimated 46% of LGBTQ workers in the U.S. have experienced some kind of unfair treatment at work—including being terminated, passed over for jobs or harassed by colleagues because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Nearly 10% of those LGBTQ employees surveyed reported experiencing on-the-job discrimination as recently as within the last year. This is in spite of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed down last year which extended non-discrimination protections in employment contexts for LGBTQ Americans.
"Employment discrimination and harassment against [LGBTQ] people remain persistent and pervasive in 2021," said the study's lead author Brad Sears, founding executive director of the Williams Institute.
The study found that 30% of LGBTQ workers reported experiencing at least one form of employment discrimination at some point in their careers, such as being fired or not hired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
An estimated 38% reported experiencing at least one form of harassment on the job due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The study also found significant trends in the disparate treatment experienced by LGBTQ workers of color compared with their white colleagues.
And 29% of LGBTQ workers of color reported not being hired due to their sexual orientation and gender identity compared to 18% of white LGBTQ workers.
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LGBTQ employees of color were also more likely to experience verbal harassment at work than white and cisgender LGBTQ employees. Among LGBTQ employees of color, 36% reported experiencing verbal harassment, while 26% of white LGBTQ employees experienced the same.
Overall, of LGBTQ employees who reported having experienced discrimination or harassment at work, 64% of those of color said that religion was a motivating factor of the harasser or harassers, compared to 49% of white LGBTQ employees.
As a result, about half of LGBTQ employees said that they are not open about their identity to their current manager. More than one quarter said they were not out to their colleagues.
Sears said that federal passage of the Equality Act, which seeks to nationally prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, education and other areas, would ensure that LGBTQ people and "particularly transgender people and [LGBTQ] people of color [...] are allowed to participate fully in the workplace as well as other public settings."
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