Your sexual orientation should never determine how you are hired, paid, promoted, disciplined, or treated at work. Lacy Employment Law Firm helps Philadelphia employees understand their rights and respond to workplace discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.
Workplace discrimination is not always direct, but unequal treatment can still damage your career, income, and professional reputation.
Sexual orientation discrimination happens when an employer treats someone unfavorably because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, or perceived to have a particular sexual orientation.
It can affect applicants, current employees, former employees, independent professionals, managers, and executives. The conduct may involve an obvious discriminatory comment, or it may appear through a pattern of unexplained discipline, exclusion, stalled advancement, or termination.
A Philadelphia sexual orientation discrimination lawyer can review the circumstances, identify possible evidence, and explain which federal, Pennsylvania, or Philadelphia protections may apply.
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Examples of possible sexual orientation discrimination include:
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits covered employers from discriminating because of sex. In Bostock v. Clayton County, the United States Supreme Court held that firing or otherwise discriminating against an employee because of sexual orientation or transgender status violates Title VII.
Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance separately prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment. Philadelphia has expressly protected people from sexual orientation discrimination since 1982, and the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations investigates complaints involving the city’s anti-discrimination laws.
The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission also identifies sexual orientation as protected under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act’s prohibition against sex discrimination.
Which law applies can depend on where the employee worked, the size and type of employer, the timing of the events, and other facts.
Workplace harassment can include slurs, offensive jokes, invasive questions, threats, ridicule, unwanted disclosure of someone’s sexual orientation, or repeated comments about an employee’s partner or personal life.
It may come from a supervisor, coworker, customer, contractor, or another person connected to the workplace. Employers may also face responsibility when management knows about discriminatory harassment and fails to respond appropriately.
A single insensitive comment may not always establish a legal claim. However, repeated harassment or a particularly serious incident may support a hostile work environment claim when the conduct affects an employee’s ability to do their job.
Useful evidence may include:
Your employer cannot lawfully punish you for raising a good-faith discrimination concern or participating in an investigation.
Retaliation may happen after an employee reports harassment, complains to human resources, supports a coworker’s complaint, serves as a witness, or files a charge with a government agency.
Possible warning signs include sudden discipline, reduced hours, exclusion from important work, negative evaluations, reassignment, threats, demotion, or termination shortly after a complaint.
Retaliation can form a separate legal claim even when the employer disputes the original discrimination allegation. Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, and Title VII prohibit retaliation connected to protected discrimination complaints.
A focused legal review can help separate unfair treatment from conduct that may violate employment law.
A sexual orientation discrimination lawyer may assist by:
