800 pound gorillas make good teammates
Friday May 25, 2007
So far, my entries have focused heavily on the "Transgender" part of this blog's title, and haven't really addressed "@ Sun". Hopefully the mere fact that I am writing here speaks volumes about Sun's commitment to diversity. Implication alone does not do the situation justice, however, so it is time to provide some details.
Neither sexual orientation (who you like) nor gender identity (who you are) are currently covered by federal anti-discrimination laws. Borrowing data from the HRC (which addresses the subject here), it is currently legal to fire a person based on their orientation in 33 states, and based on their identity in 42 states. Think about that for a minute. In 66% of the states in this country, you can be dismissed on the spot - no matter how good an employee you are - just for loving the wrong person. Employers in 84% of the states can fire you just for not conforming to their idea of how men and women are supposed to behave. I live in a state where employment discrimination based on either trait is prohibited by state law, but there are huge areas of the country where that isn't the case.
Fortunately, an increasingly large number of businesses have realized that good employees are too valuable an asset to lose to discrimination. Spurred in large part by the HRC's Corporate Equality Index, US companies have been adding sexual orientation and gender identity to their internal non-discrimination policies at an unprecedented rate over the last several years. Sun, of course, is one of them. We have a diversity policy longer than Santa's "nice list", and employees are expected to be familiar with it. (Sadly, Santa's "naughty list" is quite a bit longer.)
Knowing that your employer recognizes and enforces your right to be yourself without getting fired for it is a wonderful thing, but Sun goes even further.
After years of effort from a great many individuals and organizations, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is wending its way through Congress right now with employment protections for all GLBT individuals. If it passes (and isn't vetoed by the President), the vast majority of employers in the USA will be prohibited from firing their employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity, giving most people the same opportunities that companies like Sun already provide. Not content with respecting the diversity of its existing employees, Sun has joined other corporations in officially supporting the passage of the ENDA.
How many people can say that their employers would support them in such a massive and important cause?
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