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Where is it illegal to discriminate in employment?; too often protecting only LGB
Topic Started: 13 Feb 2015, 13:00 (118 Views)
Alfoldia
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Homotextual
Due to the mess of my sources, I've done this in a slightly complicated fashion. These are countries and larger jurisdictions that have passed employment non-discrimination clauses protecting sexual orientation and, in some cases, gender identity explicitly. Some smaller jurisdictions (the cities of Rosario and Buenos Aires in Argentina, and several cities in the Philippines, for instance) have also passed laws, but may not be listed.

Note that laws prohibiting sex discrimination or "on any other arbitrary basis" may or may not be interpreted to cover gender identity more broadly; the presence of employment non-discrimination laws does not necessarily imply broader protections [such as housing, or even non-criminalization of sexual activity] or enforcement.

Some laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and are marked with an asterisk; others exclusively cite sexual orientation and are marked with a minus. The lack of a symbol simply indicates that my sources were not forthcoming one way or the other.

*Albania
-Andorra (but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
*Australia (*ACT, *NSW, -NT, *Queensland, *South Australia, -Tasmania, *Victoria, *Western Australia)
-Austria (but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
-Belgium (federal, but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
*Bolivia (constitution and law)
*Bosnia and Herzegovina
-Botswana
provinces of Brazil (Alagoas, Bahia, Federal District, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraíba, Piauí, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo, and Sergipe)
-Bulgaria
-Canada (federally, but gender identity protected through case law; most provinces without explicit gender identity protections allow claims under "gender" or "sex"); -Alberta, -British Columbia, *Manitoba, -New Brunswick, *Newfoundland and Labrador, *Northwest Territories, *Nova Scotia, -Nunavut, *Ontario, -Prince Edward Island, -Quebec, -Saskatchewan, -Yukon Territory
-Cape Verde
*Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
*Croatia
Cuba
*Cyprus
*Czech Republic
-Denmark proper (but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
*Ecuador (employment law names only sexual orientation; Constitution provides protection against gender identity discrimination)
*El Salvador (but only applicable to public sector)
*Estonia
-Fiji
-Finland (but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
*France
*Georgia
*Germany (together with provisions in *Berlin, *Brandenburg, and Thüringen)
-Greece
*Hungary
-Iceland
-Ireland
-Israel
Italy
Kosovo
-Latvia
-Lithuania
-Luxembourg
-Macedonia
-Malta
-Mauritius
-Mexico (the SOGI database describes federal law as protecting gender identity, but it does not seem to appear in the cited legislation; its example of state legislation, the *Distrito Federal, does explicitly name both)
-Moldova
*Montenegro
-Mozambique
-Netherlands (but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
-New Zealand (but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
Nicaragua
*Norway
Peru? (listed in Wikipedia, source unclear)
-Poland
-Portugal
-Romania
*Serbia
Seychelles
-Slovakia (but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
-Slovenia
-South Africa (but case law has shown that "sex" is interpreted to include gender identity)
-South Korea
-Spain
*Sweden
Switzerland ? (listed in Wikipedia, Swiss sources seem ambivalent)
*Taiwan (in education, possibly in work as well)
*United Kingdom (including the Falklands, Guernsey, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Montserrat: non-exhaustive list)
-United States, federal civilian employees only. Twenty-one states: (*California, *Colorado, *Connecticut, *Delaware, -Guam, *Hawaii, *Iowa, *Illinois, *Maine, *Maryland, *Massachusetts, *Minnesota, *Nevada, -New Hampshire, *New Jersey, *New Mexico, -New York, *Oregon, *Puerto Rico, *Rhode Island, *Vermont, *Washington, *Washington-DC, -Wisconsin)
*Uruguay
Venezuela


SOURCES: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory); the OSCE's legislative database (http://www.legislationline.org/topics/topic/84); European Network of Legal Experts in the Non-Discrimination Field (http://www.non-discrimination.net/); a few records from the International Labour Organization's NATLEX database of labor law (http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex_browse.home); the Council of Europe's 2nd ed. (2011) report, "Discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity in Europe" (http://www.coe.int/t/Commissioner/Source/LGBT/LGBTStudy2011_en.pdf); ILGA's 9th ed. (May 2014) report, "State-Sponsored Homophobia: A world survey of laws; Criminalisation, protection, and recognition of same-sex love" (http://old.ilga.org/Statehomophobia/ILGA_SSHR_2014_Eng.pdf); the International Council of Jurists' Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Database (http://www.icj.org/sogi-legislative-database/); American Civil Liberties Union on anti-discrimination laws (https://www.aclu.org/maps/non-discrimination-laws-state-state-information-map); Canadian Heritage's page on Sexual Orientation and Human Rights (http://www.pch.gc.ca/eng/1355925591901/1355925767915); Australian Human Rights Commission's guide to anti-discrimination laws (https://www.humanrights.gov.au/guide-australias-anti-discrimination-laws).
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BearNation
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Bobby Butterpaws
Another masterful work, Alfoldia!!!

One should note that many of the especially larger cities of the USA have local laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of orientation or gender identity. The same is true of many companies, colleges, and universities.
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Closeted Cases
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Calvinist Charm Offensive
The "or on any other arbitrary basis" in Dutch law was phrased that way specifically TO include gender identity and sexual orientation into the constitutional protections enjoyed by all on Dutch territory.

It was phrased that way to make the change palatable to the Christian-Democratic Party, which at the time had 1/3 of all parliamentary seats and was the major party in the coalition government. Had the text been more explicit, it would have led to legislative gridlock and falling governments. This way, there was very little opposition.

Sometimes, it's easy to get implicitly what would have been explicitly denied.
Jesus loves you.
No really: He even loves me - and I am a Christian.
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Alfoldia
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Homotextual
Dear Closeted Cases: absolutely. I apologize for not having made that clearer -- I find it very interesting that a lot of the newer constitutions and employment laws in Europe (say, in the Former Yugoslavia) in fact explicitly cite gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes, it seems because this is in line with the current state of the European Union acquis.

But especially in Scandinavia, northern Europe and Canada, there is a history of inclusive phrasing ("or any other arbitrary ground for discrimination") being used as a basis for constitutional protection of many marginalized communities. Nova Scotia's discussion of its human rights law in fact makes explicit mention of this: while, they say, provincial and federal case law has used "sex" to protect the rights of the transgendered very robustly, the province still felt it was an important gesture to specifically include gender identity in its statute in order to send a message of explicit inclusion and protection.

BearNation: yes, absolutely true. Many sub-jurisdictions, including counties in the United States; private employers, particularly multinational firms; and cities worldwide have seen fit to pass such legislation or enact such policies. But I figured the list would be long enough as it stood...
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Alfoldia
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Homotextual
One of the really fascinating things I learned while compiling this list is that sometimes the fault lines in legislation break in really odd ways. For instance, "carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature" remains illegal in Botswana, which theoretically means that same-sex sexual acts are proscribed.

At the same time, Botswana does offer employment discrimination protections based on sexual orientation (as well as HIV status, sadly a non-trivial issue in the greater region). Perhaps this is my naivete speaking, but it seems odd to have both of these on the books at the same time (something that may have to do with it is the claim that the former is rarely enforced, and exists merely because actively taking it out of the penal code would be too controversial for current politicians).
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Banyuwangi
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Queer
Vietnam have Gay rights (this is recent news, 2015)
If I'm bad, I'm better...
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BearNation
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Bobby Butterpaws
Excellent!
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