Lack of uniform prohibitions nationwide against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination is a contributing factor as to why 44 percent of LGBTQ Asian Americans have experienced discrimination or harassment in the workplace, according to the lead author of a study released by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School.
Employment discrimination against Asian American LGBTQ employees “is persistent and widespread,” the study found. Researchers analyzed survey data collected in the summer of 2023 to examine the workplace experiences of Asian American LGBTQ adults, according to a news release about the study.
“The lifetime experiences of discrimination and harassment among Asian American LGBTQ employees are particularly high, considering that almost two-thirds are under the age of 35,” the study’s lead author, Brad Sears, distinguished senior scholar of law and policy at the institute, said in the release. “Not only do they have fewer years of work experience from which to encounter adverse events, but many of them live and work on the West Coast, where there are more protective laws and policies for LGBTQ workers.”
Contributing to this issue are the facts that there is no national law that explicitly prohibits sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination and that close to half the states have no laws that do this either, Sears told Out In Jersey in an interview.
“We really don’t live in a country that prohibits this type of discrimination uniformly or to the same extent as other types of discrimination, and we’re entering a period where definitely the federal enforcement of these laws is not going to happen,” Sears said.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted “sex discrimination” to include sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, Congress has still not passed the Equality Act, Sears noted. He added that he doesn’t believe enforcement efforts are going to happen under the Trump administration and added that he has “every reason to suspect” that will carry over to there being less enforcement by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
So what can Asian American LGBTQ employees do if they face harassment or discrimination in the workplace?
Sears said there are still efforts they can make if they happen to live in one of the states that has a state law. “And like I said, that’s about half the states; you can seek enforcement of your rights there,” he said.
Also, nationally, there “is a Supreme Court decision saying that the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination also prohibits sexual orientation discrimination, so while you might not get help from the EEOC, that still is the law. You still can get an attorney, threaten a lawsuit or file a lawsuit in federal court. That all should still work,” he said.
Sixty-four percent of Asian American LGBTQ workers are under 35, 70 percent reported being bisexual, 70 percent had at least a bachelor’s degree, 55 percent were not out to their current supervisors and 17 percent were not out to any of their coworkers, the study found.
The study also found that 32 percent of Asian American LGBTQ workers reported being fired, not hired, not promoted, or denied other opportunities because of their LGBTQ status, and 34 percent reported experiencing verbal, physical or sexual harassment related to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Other stories related: https://outinjersey.net/lgbtq-americans-are-experiencing-an-increase-in-discrimination/
Sears acknowledged that there were limitations to the study in that it treated Asian people as one group while the Asian population is so much more diverse. He said he hopes to one day do a study that will examine people from different Asian countries such as Cambodia, Japan, India and Viet Nam. He said he also hopes to explore things such as differences between Asian families who have been in the United States for generations and those who have recently immigrated, for example.
“There are different experiences, and by putting everyone into one group, you’re obscuring some of the disparities among specific groups by putting everyone together. So we understand that there are limitations to this survey, and we hope to do a much larger sample to really do justice to the variation of experience within the community,” he said.
In addition, the study found that:
- More than four in 10 (44%) Asian American LGBTQ employees we’re earning less than $50,000 a year.
- Over one in five (21%) Asian American LGBTQ adults were self-employed or employed their families.
- Almost four in 10 (38%) Asian American LGBTQ workers live in the Pacific region, consistent with the Asian American population overall but much higher than White (14%), Black (7%) and Latinx (19%) LGBTQ employees.
- About one in five Asian American LGBTQ employees reported experiencing sexual harassment (22%) or physical harassment (18%) at work because of their LGBTQ status.
- Over half (56%) of Asian LGBTQ employees reported hearing negative comments about LGBTQ people in the workplace.
- Almost half (48%) of Asian American LGBTQ employees engaging in covering behaviors at their current jobs to avoid harassment or discrimination.
- One-fifth of Asian American LGBTQ employees have avoided work-related events or travel (21%) or changed their physical appearance at work (19%) to cover their LGBTQ status.
- One-third of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported that they had left a job (34%) or looked for other jobs (33%) at some point in their lives because of how their employer treated them based on their LGBTQ status.
- Due to the workplace environment for LGBTQ people in general, 12% of Asian American LGBTQ employees considered leaving their current jobs, and of those, nearly two-thirds (64%) had taken steps toward finding another job.
