The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has finished seeking public input on proposed guidance that sets forth legal protections for people who are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Currently, Pennsylvania law does not provide protections for LGBTQ people under either the state’s Human Relations Act or the Pennsylvania Fair Educational Opportunities Act. The Republican-controlled legislature has resisted several attempts to prohibit discrimination against the LGBTQ community in employment, housing, education, or public accommodations.
With the legislature unwilling to act, the Human Relations Commission has looked at how provisions prohibiting sex discrimination can be interpreted to encompass discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. As it is required to do before adopting new regulations, the commission has just closed a period for public comment on their recommendations with respect to sex discrimination and LGBTQ protections.
One of those organizations that submitted comments to the commission is Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ legal organization. In its response to the guidance, Lambda Legal urges the commission to adopt rules and regulations explicitly prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination, include all of the rationales for why sexual orientation and gender identity should be covered under prohibitions on sex discrimination, and expand the definition of “sex” to include actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or the failure to comply to traditional sex stereotypes.
“The Commission’s proposed guidance clarifying how discrimination against LGBTQ people is prohibited under Pennsylvania law is a welcome and long-overdue step to combat the high rates of discrimination, harassment and stigma faced by LGBTQ Pennsylvanians,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, staff attorney for Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “However, the proposed guidance can be further improved by spelling out the multiple ways in which sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are forms of sex discrimination.”
Of course, LGBTQ allies are not the only ones realizing how groundbreaking the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity protections would be. Social conservatives have urged their ranks to comment on the guidance, raising the specter of transgender women sharing bathrooms with children and cisgender women as a scare tactic.
Writing for The Signal, a publication of the conservative Heritage Foundation, Michael Geer, the president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, has compared the commission’s proposed guidance to former President Barack Obama’s executive actions and guidance provided by federal agencies under the Obama administration that extended rights or protections to LGBTQ people.
Geer particularly aims his vitriol at Gov. Tom Wolf, who last year installed a new chairman on the Human Relations Commission to “further his agenda.” Geer also accuses the commission of usurping the power that should be left in the hands of Republican legislators in Harrisburg.
“Now in the face of a legislative stalemate, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is making an end run around the Legislature to impose a freedom-robbing policy through a bureaucratic agency that was founded to guard our civil liberties,” he writes.
Randall Wenger, the chief counsel of the conservative Independence Law Center, previously urged social conservatives to flood the commission’s inbox with emails opposing the proposed guidance, which he calls “devastating to personal privacy and religious liberty.”
The period for public comment closed on May 26, but it is unknown how much impact Wenger and other social conservatives may have had in trying to sway the commission’s members to reject the proposed guidance.
“Pennsylvania has long had a commitment to eliminating discrimination and assuring its people equal access and opportunity to all within its borders,” says Lambda Legal’s Gonzalez-Pagan. “We urge the Commission to adopt rules and regulations, in accordance with our recommendations, that guarantee LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming Pennsylvanians an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life within the commonwealth.”
On Tuesday, April 16, a federal appeals court voted to block a West Virginia law banning transgender student-athletes from competing on teams that align with their gender identity.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the ban, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Jim Justice in April 2021, violates the rights of transgender students under Title IX, the federal statute that prohibits sex-based discrimination.
The law was challenged by a slew of civil rights and LGBTQ organizations on behalf of B.P.J., a 13-year-old transgender girl and middle school track and cross-country athlete who wishes to compete as a girl.
Following her critically acclaimed performance as trans teen Jules Vaughn in Euphoria, Hunter Schafer says she no longer wants to play transgender roles.
Speaking with GQ magazine, the 25-year-old actress, who is herself transgender, noted that she has turned down "tons of trans roles" because she doesn't want to be typecast and prefers her gender identity not define the rest of her career.
"I don’t want to be that, and I find it ultimately demeaning to me and what I want to do," Schafer said. "I worked so hard to get to where I am, past these really hard points in my transition, and now I just want to be a girl and finally move on."
The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County settled a lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal alleging that the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department's hiring policies unfairly discriminated against people with HIV.
The lawsuit claimed that the plaintiff, a 45-year-old decorated civil servant going by the pseudonym John Doe, had applied to work for the police department in 2020, and was initially offered a job.
However, the department later rescinded that offer after learning, during the Civil Service Medical Officer's exam process, that Doe is living with HIV.
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The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has finished seeking public input on proposed guidance that sets forth legal protections for people who are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Currently, Pennsylvania law does not provide protections for LGBTQ people under either the state’s Human Relations Act or the Pennsylvania Fair Educational Opportunities Act. The Republican-controlled legislature has resisted several attempts to prohibit discrimination against the LGBTQ community in employment, housing, education, or public accommodations.
With the legislature unwilling to act, the Human Relations Commission has looked at how provisions prohibiting sex discrimination can be interpreted to encompass discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. As it is required to do before adopting new regulations, the commission has just closed a period for public comment on their recommendations with respect to sex discrimination and LGBTQ protections.
One of those organizations that submitted comments to the commission is Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ legal organization. In its response to the guidance, Lambda Legal urges the commission to adopt rules and regulations explicitly prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination, include all of the rationales for why sexual orientation and gender identity should be covered under prohibitions on sex discrimination, and expand the definition of “sex” to include actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or the failure to comply to traditional sex stereotypes.
“The Commission’s proposed guidance clarifying how discrimination against LGBTQ people is prohibited under Pennsylvania law is a welcome and long-overdue step to combat the high rates of discrimination, harassment and stigma faced by LGBTQ Pennsylvanians,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, staff attorney for Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “However, the proposed guidance can be further improved by spelling out the multiple ways in which sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are forms of sex discrimination.”
Of course, LGBTQ allies are not the only ones realizing how groundbreaking the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity protections would be. Social conservatives have urged their ranks to comment on the guidance, raising the specter of transgender women sharing bathrooms with children and cisgender women as a scare tactic.
Writing for The Signal, a publication of the conservative Heritage Foundation, Michael Geer, the president of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, has compared the commission’s proposed guidance to former President Barack Obama’s executive actions and guidance provided by federal agencies under the Obama administration that extended rights or protections to LGBTQ people.
Geer particularly aims his vitriol at Gov. Tom Wolf, who last year installed a new chairman on the Human Relations Commission to “further his agenda.” Geer also accuses the commission of usurping the power that should be left in the hands of Republican legislators in Harrisburg.
“Now in the face of a legislative stalemate, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is making an end run around the Legislature to impose a freedom-robbing policy through a bureaucratic agency that was founded to guard our civil liberties,” he writes.
Randall Wenger, the chief counsel of the conservative Independence Law Center, previously urged social conservatives to flood the commission’s inbox with emails opposing the proposed guidance, which he calls “devastating to personal privacy and religious liberty.”
The period for public comment closed on May 26, but it is unknown how much impact Wenger and other social conservatives may have had in trying to sway the commission’s members to reject the proposed guidance.
“Pennsylvania has long had a commitment to eliminating discrimination and assuring its people equal access and opportunity to all within its borders,” says Lambda Legal’s Gonzalez-Pagan. “We urge the Commission to adopt rules and regulations, in accordance with our recommendations, that guarantee LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming Pennsylvanians an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life within the commonwealth.”