Equality Florida: Support Fully-Inclusive Nondiscrimination Protections in Housing, Employment, and Public Accommodations
On January 24, 2019, the Human Rights Campaign, National LGBTQ Task Force, National Center for Lesbian Rights, the ACLU of Florida, the National Center for Transgender Equality, QLatinX, Florida Trans Proud, TransAction Florida, and Equality Florida released the following statement in support of nondiscrimination protections in housing, employment, and public accommodations. The organizations reaffirm their support for fully-inclusive, comprehensive protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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Tallahassee -- Today the Human Rights Campaign, National LGBTQ Task Force, National Center for Lesbian Rights, the ACLU of Florida, the National Center for Transgender Equality, QLatinX, Florida Trans Proud, TransAction Florida, and Equality Florida released the following statement in support of nondiscrimination protections in housing, employment, and public accommodations. The organizations reaffirm their support for fully-inclusive, comprehensive protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
LGBTQ Floridians Deserve to Be Protected in Employment, Housing, and Public Accommodations
We stand together in support of the Florida Competitive Workforce Act (FCWA) legislation that would update the Florida Civil Rights Act to explicitly ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations.
This inclusive and comprehensive legislation has consistently garnered wide bipartisan support. Over 450 Florida businesses, including 14 of Florida’s largest employers, have endorsed it. In fact, in the 2018 legislative session, the Florida Competitive Workforce Act was the third most co-sponsored legislation in the Florida legislature. Bipartisan momentum for this important and comprehensive legislation grows.
We support a fully inclusive Florida Competitive Workforce Act that explicitly protects LGBTQ individuals on the basis of employment, housing, and public accommodations. Excluding public accommodations protections would continue to leave LGBTQ communities—particularly the transgender community—at risk of grave harm, and gives credence to mistaken and discredited assumptions about who transgender people are. No one should be denied access to public spaces and to public life simply because of who they are.
From transgender students being harassed at school to efforts to eject transgender servicemembers from the military to the numerous murders of transgender women of color in Florida, the transgender community is bearing the brunt of the attacks on LGBTQ equality.
It has never been more important for LGBTQ people and our allies to demand true equality and full inclusion in public life.
Currently, comprehensive local nondiscrimination protections that include gender identity and sexual orientation cover 60% of our state's population. Our community has achieved this by refusing to accept scare tactics and instead addressing fears and misinformation directly. We will do so at the state level as well.
We stand firmly with transgender Floridians in our pursuit of a fully inclusive and comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights law that explicitly protects LGBTQ individuals on the basis of employment, housing, and public accommodations.