The big news of the day is the issuance of the 2006 Corporate Equality Index by the Human Rights Campaign. I haven't read it yet (it's 68 pages long!) but it promises to be fascinating reading, as there are 138 major companies earning a rating of 100%, up from 101 last year.
In order to obtain a rating of 100% this year, a company must have included "gender identity" in its EEO policy and also provided training on transgender issues, written guidelines and/or health benefits for transgender employees.
I'm printing as we speak, and expect to have more details tomorrow.
I've previously blogged about the origins and the future of the Corporate Equality Index. Based on my dissertation research on the timing of workplace policy adoptions, it is clear that the inclusion of transgender issues in the Corporate Equality Index metric since its association with HRC in 2002 has given a big push to transgender workplace equality in major U.S. companies.
I note that transgender advocates, well prior to the involvement of HRC, had achieved breakthrough results, though the numbers were, of course, much smaller. Here's a chart from my dissertation on the growth of private employer transgender HR policies from 1997 to 2004. It was in 2001 that a 100% breakthrough occurred (noted in red below). The number of policies continued to grow in 2002, and accelerated its growth in 2003.
Cumulative Growth of Private Employer Transgender HR Policies by Year
1997 4
1998 5
1999 9
2000 12
2001 25
2002 39
2003 65
2004 80
If you want to see a similar chart by GenderPAC, it's here. The numbers are different, because I used all companies, whereas GenderPAC refers to "major corporations"
