First-Ever Transgender Witness Testifies Before Senate

By Elizabeth Flock
June 12, 2012

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/06/12/-first-ever-transgender-witness-testifies-before-senate

Kylar Broadus, a lawyer and professor at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO, became the first transgender witness to testify before the Senate on Tuesday.

Broadus, a long time transgender activist , testified before the Senate Senate Health and Labor Committee during a hearing on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

[...]

Broadus testified Tuesday about his experience working at a large insurance company in the 1990's. When he transitioned, he said, he was harassed and later fired.

"While my supervisors could tolerate a somewhat masculine-appearing black woman, they were not prepared to deal with my transition to being a black man," he said.

And Broadus soon found he had no legal recourse, as transgender people in the workplace weren't covered under any discrimination laws. He said he has never fully recovered financially.

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Testimony on S.811, The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2011

By M. V. Lee Badgett 
June 12, 2012

http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/workplace/testimony-s811-061212/

Summary of testimony: S.811, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, would outlaw discrimination in hiring and other employment decisions based on sexual orientation and gender identity. I will use recent and ongoing research to document the clear need for this legislation.

First, several decades of social science research have demonstrated that employment discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans occurs in workplaces all across the country.  This evidence comes from many different methods of studying discrimination, including self-reported experiences, official complaints of discrimination in states that already ban it, experiments to measure the treatment of LGBT job applicants, and comparisons of wages earned by LGBT people and heterosexual people.  The evidence includes discrimination in both private sector employment and public employment in state and local governments.

Second, nondiscrimination laws like ENDA are likely to reduce discrimination.  Some recent evidence suggests that state laws banning discrimination have been effective in reducing wage gaps and employment discrimination against LGB people, in particular.