Proposed Law Would Ban LGBTQ+ Job Discrimination In La.

By Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Illuminator

February 24, 2023

16:27
News Story

• Civil Rights
• Govt + Politics
• Legislative
• LGBTQ

Proposed law would ban LGBTQ job discrimination

By: Piper Hutchinson - February 24, 2023 4:27 pm

Proposed legislation would protect LGBTQ people from employment discrimination (Ludovic Bertron, Flickr)

A bill the Louisiana Legislature will consider would prohibit employment discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

House Bill 40, sponsored by Rep. Delisha Boyd, D-New Orleans, would add protections for gender identity and sexual orientation to Louisiana’s employment discrimination law. The list currently includes race, color, religion, sex, national origin and hairstyle.

Boyd’s proposal would exempt religious organizations, which include some of Louisiana’s largest employers.

The bill includes identical language to one Boyd introduced in 2022. House Bill 439 was shot down after a brief discussion in the House Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, its first stop in the law-making process.

That bill was supported by the ACLU of Louisiana, Louisiana AFL-CIO and several progressive organizations.

Peyton Rose Michelle, executive director of Louisiana Trans Advocates, said the proposal would be a step in the right direction.

“LGBTQ+ people, and especially trans people, have really rough times getting jobs, especially good paying jobs,” Michelle said in an interview.

Michelle said of all the cases of gender identity and sexual orientation based employment discrimination she has heard of, none involved religion-affiliated employers.

“It’s very sad that even in 2023 our employment protections, kind of in our national government or state government, on both levels, don’t cover LGBTQ+ people,” Michelle said. “It feels like aspects that remain with us from the Dark Ages.”

Boyd did not respond to a request for comment.

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The Louisiana Illuminator is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization driven by its mission to cast light on how decisions are made in Baton Rouge and how they affect the lives of everyday Louisianians, particularly those who are poor or otherwise marginalized.