The Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights by Devlin Smith

Author:Devlin Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
Published: 2019-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

OUT IN THE WORKPLACE

On January 9, 2017, US secretary of state John Kerry issued an apology on behalf of the State Department to LGBTQ+ employees and activists who had faced discrimination from the agency. Secretary Kerry wrote:

In the past—as far back as the 1940s, but continuing for decades—the Department of State was among many public and private employers that discriminated against employees and job applicants on the basis of perceived sexual orientation, forcing some employees to resign or refusing to hire certain applicants in the first place. These actions were wrong then, just as they would be wrong today.

LGBTQ+ government and private-sector employees and applicants in the United States and Canada have long faced workplace discrimination. In the 1940s and 1950s, the State Department fired gay employees, which laid the groundwork for President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450 in 1953. It banned gay men and lesbians from working in the federal government (it would take more than sixty years for the executive order to be fully repealed). Because of laws at the time barring same-sex relationships and what were then deemed “homosexual acts,” some employees feared LGBTQ+ workers would be susceptible to blackmail. Others were driven to discriminate by prejudice. As a result, some people lost their jobs. Others weren’t hired. This era of discrimination against LGBTQ+ employees in the government became known as the Lavender Scare.

On November 28, 2017, Canadian prime minister Trudeau issued an apology on his country’s behalf to LGBTQ+ government workers and military personnel during a period that’s become known as the LGBT Purge. Delivering his remarks in the House of Commons, the prime minister said:

Today, we finally talk about Canada’s role in the systemic oppression, criminalization, and violence against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit communities. And it is my hope that in talking about these injustices, vowing to never repeat them, and acting to right these wrongs, we can begin to heal.

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