On election night, over 60 percent of voters in Corvallis, Oregon backed Measure 02-56, amending their city charter to provide non-discrimination for gender identity and expression, and sexual orientation. Corvallis joins two Oregon counties and six other cities: Multnomah County, Benton County, Beaverton, Bend, Hillsboro, Lake Oswego, Portland, and Salem. (The HRC laws database over at http://www.hrc.org/worklife/gdsearch doesn't include Hillsboro, but there is one. I've sent them a note.)
Of the 4 Fortune 500 companies in Oregon (Nike, Precision Castparts, Lithia Motors, and StanCorp Financial), only Nike has a policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
The list of cities and counties with laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity keeps growing. It's probably a good idea to stop every once in a while and count. How many are there now?
When I search the HRC laws database (http://www.hrc.org/worklife/gdsearch) for cities in any state with an employment anti-discrimination law or policy that includes gender identity and applies to all residents, there are 72 cities, 14 counties and 6 states on the list. There should be a 7th, Washington State which went into effect in June. I've sent HRC a note.
For the sticklers, I note that, while there are 7 states that prohibit discrimination against transgender employee (CA, IL, ME, MN, NM, RI and WA), there are, in fact, 15 states that have state-wide law protecting transgender employees. How can that be? Well, there are 3 more states that have executive orders prohibiting employment discrimination against public employees, though there is no state-wide statute: IN, NJ and PA. (The HRC database doesn't include NJ, but there is one. I've sent HRC a note. What is going on with HRC's database?) Also, there are 6 states with court rulings prohibiting discrimination against transgender employees: CT, FL, HI, MA, NJ, and NY. When you add all these together, that makes 16, no 15 (can't count NJ twice!) (Hey, calling all nerds out there - did I get that right?) (Re Hawaii: although there is or was a bill pending, it hasn't been passed, though the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission seems to be interpreting sex to include some transgender people. Actually, I'm not sure if Hawaii's law is a court ruling or an executive order, or what. Here's the text and you tell me.)
The HRC employer database (http://www.hrc.org/worklife/ndgisearch) shows 435 employers with policies prohibiting gender identity discrimination, including 118 Fortune 500 companies, and 75 colleges and universities.
When I started my research in 2002, there were no states, about a dozen cities, and less than 100 employers on the list.
