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LGBT workers in Mississippi fired, harassed: Report
LGBT workers in Mississippi fired, harassed: ReportMollie Bryant, The Clarion-Ledger 8:14 p.m. CDT September 21, 2015
mbryant2@gannett.com
(601) 961-7251
@MollieEBryant
A man lost his job after the juvenile detention center where he worked learned he was gay. A gay man was fired from a restaurant after repeated harassment. And a transgender employee alleged a loan company discriminated against him by telling him his gender expression violated company policy and asking that he sign a document agreeing to dress as a woman during business trips.
These three incidents, happening over the last few years in Mississippi, are in a Williams Institute report on workplace discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Almost 40 percent of LGBT employees in Mississippi reported harassment at work, and about 1 in 4 said they had experienced discrimination in the workplace, the report said.
Even as polls have found a majority of Mississippians support workplace protections for the LGBT community, the state has no laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. ... Mississippi is among about 30 states in which LGBT people are unprotected from employment discrimination, Williams Institute Senior Counsel Christy Mallory said. ... “In these areas, there’s nowhere to go to report that type of discrimination, so it’s hard to get a measure of it, but it’s something we’re seeing anecdotally or in surveys,” she said.
....
State Sen. Phillip Gandy, R-Waynesboro, said he is unaware of any instances of workplace discrimination against LGBT people. The author of the state’s religious freedom bill, who has completed his last term in the Legislature, is concerned instead about what he views as discrimination against Christians, such as Kim Davis, the Kentucky circuit clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. ... “I believe we’re seeing, just as an example, the clerk in Kentucky with her convictions as a Christian that she could not participate in that,” Gandy said. “There are arguments on both sides of that, but I believe she, as a Christian, has rights that have long been honored in the United States and been protected. We’ve seen some changes in that area around the nation.”
mbryant2@gannett.com
(601) 961-7251
@MollieEBryant
A man lost his job after the juvenile detention center where he worked learned he was gay. A gay man was fired from a restaurant after repeated harassment. And a transgender employee alleged a loan company discriminated against him by telling him his gender expression violated company policy and asking that he sign a document agreeing to dress as a woman during business trips.
These three incidents, happening over the last few years in Mississippi, are in a Williams Institute report on workplace discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Almost 40 percent of LGBT employees in Mississippi reported harassment at work, and about 1 in 4 said they had experienced discrimination in the workplace, the report said.
Even as polls have found a majority of Mississippians support workplace protections for the LGBT community, the state has no laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. ... Mississippi is among about 30 states in which LGBT people are unprotected from employment discrimination, Williams Institute Senior Counsel Christy Mallory said. ... “In these areas, there’s nowhere to go to report that type of discrimination, so it’s hard to get a measure of it, but it’s something we’re seeing anecdotally or in surveys,” she said.
....
State Sen. Phillip Gandy, R-Waynesboro, said he is unaware of any instances of workplace discrimination against LGBT people. The author of the state’s religious freedom bill, who has completed his last term in the Legislature, is concerned instead about what he views as discrimination against Christians, such as Kim Davis, the Kentucky circuit clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. ... “I believe we’re seeing, just as an example, the clerk in Kentucky with her convictions as a Christian that she could not participate in that,” Gandy said. “There are arguments on both sides of that, but I believe she, as a Christian, has rights that have long been honored in the United States and been protected. We’ve seen some changes in that area around the nation.”
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