Report Cards

A report in the news and a report to be released are what I want to talk about today. Two reports that are close to my heart.

The first report was by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law that analyzed LGBT protection by states are the country. An article in the Center for American Progress said…

Transgender people in particular face extraordinarily high rates of employment discrimination. Ninety percent of transgender individuals in a 2011 survey reported encountering some form of harassment or mistreatment on the job, or took actions to avoid it. Forty-seven percent of those individuals experienced some sort of adverse job outcome, including 26 percent who were fired and forced into the ranks of unemployment due to gender identity-discrimination.

Eighty-nine percent of Americans mistakenly believe it is illegal under federal law to be fired because you are gay or transgender, but this type of discrimination is perfectly legal in a majority of states. Unfortunately, Congress has yet to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which would provide the gay and transgender workforce crucial protections against workplace discrimination based on a person’s real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

That was one of the hurdles that we had to overcome here in Connecticut when we were first trying to pass the gender inclusive anti-discrimination law, many of the lawmakers thought the we were already covered under sexual orientation.

The report said about Connecticut,

Connecticut (law: sexual orientation and gender identity)
All employees are protected against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. Private employees, however, are eligible to pursue administrative remedies and file an action if they sought administrative remedies first. Additionally, private employees are eligible for compensatory damages if they file an action. All employees are allowed to receive punitive damages if the court has the authority to award them and if they filed their action with the court instead of an administrative agency. Attorney fees may be recovered if the complaint is filed in court.

Here in Connecticut the law covers all businesses that employ more than 3 workers.

Connecticut (1991, 2011)—Sexual orientation and gender identity and expression protected in all employment
Summary: In 1991 Connecticut passed An Act Concerning Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual
Orientation, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in public and private employment.
Then in 2011 Connecticut passed An Act Concerning Discrimination, which prohibits discrimination in public and private employment based on gender identity and expression
[…]
Penalties:

• Private-sector plaintiffs must first exhaust administrative remedies before they are permitted to file a complaint in civil court.
• Compensatory damages are available to private employees but only if the aggrieved employee files a complaint in court.
• Punitive damages are sometimes unavailable due to a split of authority on whether a court can award punitive damages under the statute.
• Litigants may only receive punitive damages if they have filed their complaint in court instead of the corresponding administrative agency.
• Litigants are not allowed to recuperate attorney fees unless the complaint was filed in court.

The law also includes criminal penalties under certain circumstances and also covers housing, credit and public accommodation discrimination. Under the housing section it covers rentals and the sale of property. The public accommodation it covers restaurant, hotels, gyms, parks, homeless shelters, hospitals and any place that serves the public. In addition, the law covers public and some private schools (if they receive government funding of any type), you can read about what it does cover here.
(Here is a link to the Connecticut Non – Discrimination Law, Public Act No. 11-55)

The other report that I want to briefly mention is a research project that I worked on that studied the trans-population in the greater Hartford area called the “Transgender Regional Area Networks Survey,” or TRANS Protect (or formally known as “Population Size, Characteristics and HIV Risks among Transgender Individuals in Hartford and Surrounding Towns”). The final report has just been finished and should be sent out to the grantors shortly and hopefully, then published. The project was funded and supported by the Community Research Partnership Program (CRPP), Community Research Core, Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA), through the National Institute of Mental Health and the agency that I work with Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition was one of core organizations that worked on the project. When the study is published, I will provide a link to it.