State and local policies related to sexual orientation in the United States

Abstract

Poorer health suffered by lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) populations may be associated with public policies. We collected the laws that in 2013 prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation from 50 United States (US) states, the District of Columbia (Washington, DC or DC), and the 30 most populous US metropolitan areas. To facilitate future research, we coded certain aspects of these laws to create a dataset. We generated descriptive statistics by jurisdiction type and tested for regional differences in state law using Chi-square tests. Sixteen (31.4 per cent) states prohibited discrimination by all employers based on sexual orientation, 25 states (49.0 per cent) in public employment, 18 states (35.3 per cent) in government contracting, and 21 states (41.2 per cent) in private employment. Twenty-one states prohibited discrimination (41.2 per cent) in housing practices (selling and renting), and 17 (33.3 per cent) in public accommodations. Local (county/city) laws prohibiting discrimination were less common. State laws differed significantly by US census region - West, Midwest, Northeast, and South. Future analyses of these data could examine the impact of these laws on various outcomes, including health among LGB populations.

Cities take the lead : LGBT nondiscrimination policy adoption by local governments

“…Median Age: In general, younger Americans have been shown to be more supportive of LGBT rights (Cravens 2015). Median age has had mixed results in previous research, some studies show a significant impact on LGBT policy, while others show no such relationship (Wald, Button, and Rienzo 1996;Cramer et al 2017). This nationwide data should shed further light on this debate by providing further evidence to either support or reject the notion that the median age has important impacts on local LGBT nondiscrimination policies.…”

“…The notion that characteristics of cities can predict the presence or lack of an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance is well documented by prior research (Wald, Button, and Rienzo 1996;Dorris 1999;Cravens 2015, Cramer et al 2017. There are numerous indicators that can be used to determine which city characteristics are correlated with having an LGBT nondiscrimination law.…”

“…LGBT ordinances was limited by the lack of data and the immense chore of collecting the necessary data to conduct a nationwide study of LGBT nondiscrimination policy. Researchers have mostly chosen to limit samples to a few large cities or particular states to help control for the myriad of anomalies that occur within the United States' complex federal system (Haider-Markel and Meier 1996;Cravens 2015;Seyforth and Barnes 2016;Cramer et al 2017). Others have studied the percentage of the population covered by local LGBT ordinances (Haider-Markel and Meier 1996).…”

“…LGBT people still lack any discrimination protections under federal law (Riggle and Tadlock 1999;Gossett 1999;Mucciaroni 2008;Cravens 2015;Cramer et al 2017).…”

“…LGBT nondiscrimination policy because on average, people with college education are more accepting of alternative perspectives and lifestyles. LGBT nondiscrimination policies (Wald, Button, and Rienzo 1996;Dorris 1999;Cramer et al 2017). Per capita income is used to measure differences between cities because it accounts for both the overall wealth of a city and its population size.…”