Over 8 million LGBTQ workers in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ. A new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds that nearly half (46%) of them are not open about being LGBTQ to their current supervisor, and one-fifth (21%) are not out to any of their coworkers.
LGBTQ employees who are out to at least a few coworkers or their supervisor are three times more likely to report experiencing discrimination (39% vs. 12%) and more than twice as likely to report harassment (42% vs. 17%) at some point in their lives than those who are not out to anyone at work. In addition, LGBTQ workers who are open about being LGBTQ are four times more likely than those who are not out to have experienced discrimination in the past year (12% vs 3%).
Researchers analyzed the lifetime, five-year, and past-year experiences of discrimination and harassment among 1,902 LGBTQ adults in the workforce using survey data collected in the summer of 2023.
Almost half (47%) of LGBTQ employees reported experiencing discrimination or harassment at work because of their sexual orientation or gender identity during their lifetime.
Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) employees, as well as LGBTQ people of color, were significantly more likely to report experiencing discrimination at work. According to the data, 55% of TNB employees reported experiencing discrimination at some point in their lives, compared to 31% of cisgender LGBQ employees. LGBTQ employees of color (42%) were also more likely to report experiencing discrimination than white LGBTQ employees (27%).
“Discrimination and harassment negatively impact both employees and employers,” said lead author Brad Sears, Founding Executive Director at the Williams Institute. “More robust protections, including monitoring and enforcement, are needed to ensure that LGBTQ people, particularly trans and nonbinary people and LGBTQ people of color, are fully protected from discrimination and harassment in the workplace.”
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which extended employment non-discrimination protections to LGBTQ people nationwide, results show that discrimination and harassment against LGBTQ workers persists.
In the past year, 17% of LGBTQ employees experienced discrimination or harassment. Transgender and nonbinary employees and LGBTQ employees of color were about twice as likely as cisgender LGBQ and white workers to experience discrimination or harassment in the past year.
Additional Findings
Discrimination and Harassment
- One-third of LGBTQ employees (34%) reported experiencing at least one form of employment discrimination (including being fired, not hired, or not promoted) based on their sexual orientation or gender identity at some point in their lives.
- 37% of LGBTQ employees reported experiencing at least one form of harassment at work due to their sexual orientation or gender identity at some point in their lives.
Workplace Culture
- Almost three-quarters (72%) of LGBTQ employees reported that they heard negative comments, slurs, or jokes about LGBTQ people at work at some point in their lives.
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- More than half of TNB employees (53%) reported hearing negative comments in the past year compared to a third of cisgender LGBQ employees (34%).
Avoiding Discrimination
- More than half of LGBTQ employees (58%) reported engaging in “covering” behaviors to avoid harassment or discrimination at work, such as changing their physical appearance, altering their bathroom use, and avoiding talking about their families or social lives at work.
- TNB employees were about twice as likely as cisgender LGBQ employees to engage in covering behaviors.
Retention
- One-third (33%) of LGBTQ employees reported that they had left a job at some point in their lives because of how their employer treated them based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.