Sexual Orientation and or Gender Identity

Sexual Orientation and or Gender Identity

Should sexual orientation and or gender identity be explicitly added to the list of federally protected classes?

The response to this the above questions requires one first all to understand the meaning of sexual orientation and gender identity correctly, respectively, and how they differ in various contexts. While sexual orientation concerns the romantic, emotional, or sexual feelings one has towards the opposite sex, gender identity on the other side is how one feels himself or herself and to express their gender through behavior clothing and personal appearance. This kind of feeling usually begins at an early age of life. However, it is worth noting that gender identity is far much different from sex and gender. While gender identity is about the recognition of oneself, sex, on the other hand, is the label of female or male that one is assigned at birth by a doctor based on the genital he or she born with and the chromosomes. Gender is somehow complicated since it revolves around legal or social status and different expectations from the society concerning characteristics, behaviors, and thoughts. Every community has set standards on how people should conduct themselves based on gender. Having understood these terms, we can now look at why sexual orientation and or gender identity should be or not included in the list of federally protected classes basing our argument from four peer-reviewed legal academic articles touching on various sides of gender identity and or sexual orientation.

Peer-Reviewed Article One:

“Contemporary Issues in Sexual Orientation and Identity Development in Emerging Adulthood”

One of the peers reviewed articles discussing sexual orientation and or gender identity is entitled “Contemporary Issues in Sexual Orientation and Identity Development in Emerging Adulthood” by Elizabeth Morgan. She is a psychologist from the department of psychology of Springfield college in the United States of America. In this article, Elizabeth presents emerging adulthood as a different development stage for identity development and sexual orientation. In the past ten decades, a body of professional researchers begun dissecting the current emerging adults’ comprehension of their stages of sexual identity growth and sexual orientation. These research scholars have increasingly identified the multidimensional feature of sexual identity growth and its complexity among the sexual minority group and the heterosexual growth which justifies why sexual orientation should be included in the list of federally protected classes. The article also covers the contemporary understanding of sexual identity and orientation, modern models and traditional models of sexual identity growth, and more on current empirical literature bedeviling developmental spectra, consistency within and between dimensions of sexual identity and orientation, their stability, and cases of labeling sexual identification and categorization. This article suggests that the increased awareness between and within sexual identity classes is granted but also indicates notable categories and patterns that should be taken into consideration even as the research continues (Morgan, 2013).

The principal highlighted points in this article by Elizabeth is that by upcoming adulthood, everyone shall have recognized a pattern of sexual orientation and some shall have obtained an identity label of sexual minority to support the attraction process and or behaviors similar-sex others as earlier discussed by Calzo, Antonucci, Mays, and Cochran, (2011) in the article sexual orientation and gender identity-related article “Retrospective recall of sexual orientation identity development among gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults.

Peer-Reviewed Article Two:

“Is Your Company in a State with LGBTQ Non-Discrimination Laws?”

In another article entitled “Is Your Company in a State with LGBTQ Non-Discrimination Laws?” by Nicole Roder, it was legally accepted everywhere in US for employers to decline to hire someone based on his or her gender identity or sexual orientation until recently when the state in conjunction with federal LGBTQ thrown out the non-discrimination laws. LGBTQ is an abbreviation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer. The LGBTQ non-discrimination laws addressed in this article are employers might not discriminate on the grounds of gender identity or sexual orientation, prohibition in hiring, recruiting, interviewing, promoting, firing or establishing conditions of work, and labor unions within the concerned states might not deprive membership to otherwise merited workers based on gender discrimination and sexual orientation (Nunn, 2019).

All the employment agencies are restricted from discriminating in interviewing or job referrals. Moreover, some states have even prohibited job sites and newspapers from discriminatory related job announcements. The article further suggests that employers are most likely at home with laws protecting employees from discriminations on the grounds of sex, religion, race, disability, or national origin. Such states have begun including gender identity and sexual orientation to their list of protected classes. It is significant to note that several of these countries with LGBTQ non- discrimination rules tackle more than job discrimination, some handle public accommodations, credit, housing, and, most specifically, state employees. Even though this article only concentrates on employment but when running an organization that treats customers in at least one of these fields, then you may choose in this direction (Nunn, 2019).

The article also presents various categories of LGBTQ non-discrimination rules according to movement advancement plan. These categories include state law that expressly restricts discrimination based on gender orientation and or social orientation, those that interpret the existing sex discrimination rule based on gender identity and or sexual orientation. The state law that prohibits discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation instead of gender identity, the state is a parcel of the federal circuit where the court ruling determined that Title VII, which prohibits sex discrimination, also restricts discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and or sexual orientation. The state discourages discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in government jobs, and lastly, the country has not the law addressing the perception of LGBTQ.

Peer-Reviewed Article Three:

“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination”

In the above article by Holning Lau, laws about gender identity and sexual orientation have undergone significant changes. However, gender identity and sexual orientation still have legal protections against all vary worldwide. Several critical questions have emerged as the jurisdiction strives to protect individuals against gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination. The Brill article reviews and discusses and presents scholarly commentary and legal developments about these questions. Positively, this article evaluates five questions, as seen below.

Number one is whether or not gender identity or sexual orientation discrimination is encompassed by the existing laws preventing sex discrimination. Number two interrogates whether or not gender identity and sexual orientation should be considered as protected categories of themselves and in themselves. Number three questions the existence of a standard procedure for establishing legal protections to deal with gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination, and number four examines the drawbacks of growing gender identity and social orientation discrimination. Lastly, number five asks how profound religious objections should justify an exemption from gender identity and social orientation discrimination bans. Many jurisdictions across the world have revisited their laws that prohibited same-sex relationships and diverse expressions of gender identities.

Moreover, a significant number of states are further changing their laws to accommodate gay, lesbians, transgender, and bisexual individuals. The development in the US reflects the globalization of gender identity and sexual orientation rights. The UN office of the topmost ranked commissioner of civil rights made the combatting of gender identity and sexual orientation a priority through a free and equal campaign focused on realizing those rights. Similarly, the council of UN human rights signed a historical intervention in the year 2016 by appointing the first-ever UN’s anonymous expert on protection from discrimination and violence based on gender identity and sexual orientation (Lau, 2018).

Peer- Reviewed Article Four:

“Do Ask, Do Tell: High Levels of Acceptability by Patients of Routine Collection of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data in Four Diverse American Community Health Centers” by Cahill, Singal, Grasso, King, Mayer, Baker and Makadon

In the above, the Institute of Medicine and Joint Commission recommended questioning of gender identity and sexual orientation concerns in the clinical backgrounds and the inclusion of such information in (EHRs) the Electronic Health Records. The EHRs were highly considered a significant step toward systematic documentation and address of health challenges affecting LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender). The government of the US is at the moment considering whether or not to include the gender identity and sexual orientation data collection among the stage three guidelines for the incentive project promoting the appropriate use of electronic health records. To better understand the responses from various groups of patients, the gender identity and sexual orientation questions were posted in primary care environments with over three hundred randomly selected patients earning primary care at four centers all over the United States of America. The sample was majorly racially diverse, heterosexual, regionally, and geographically extensive (Cahill, Singal, Grasso, King, Mayer, Baker, and Makadon, 2014).

There was an agreement among the patients surveyed on the relevance of these questions, and the majority of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender thought the survey questions would enable them accurately implement their gender identity and sexual orientation rights. Some responded to the questions and even promised to answer them in the future. However, there were some age differences, and the respondents from diverging ages jointly showed support for the survey as they understood the benefit of the provider’s acknowledging their gender identity and sexual orientation.

Given the current discussions with the health care of national regulatory bodies and the increased attention of the government to the LGBT’ health challenges, the findings that the patients could and will answer the gender identity and sexual orientation questions have necessary implications for a public rule. This article presents facts that the integration of gender identity and sexual orientation data collection to the appropriate use is both apprehended by various kinds of patients, including feasible and heterosexual. The shift from manual to EHRs started years ago and facilitated by funding from ARRA (American recovery and reinvestment act) of 2009 and the protection of patients and affordable care of the year 2010 is also a vital structural transformation in the health care performance that should assist in improving the outcomes of patients, handle challenges and reduce costs. Thus, the report of the Institute of Medicine in 2011 recommended the collection of data on gender identity and sexual orientation in electronic health records as part of the meaningful use of objectives for its incentive programs. The report also suggested the improvising of questions to enable the pooling and comparison of information to analyze specific health requirements of the LGBT individuals (Cahill et al., 2014).

The significant reasons for collecting data on gender identity and sexual orientation patients is due to the growing research body that has highlighted various challenges affecting LGBT individuals. These disparities include bisexual and gay experiencing a high rate of behavioral health and mental issues such as suicidal ideation and depression. Bisexual women and lesbians being attacked by cervical cancer at a similar rate, bisexual women and men likelihood of pathetic health than heterosexual and bisexual respondents and the transgender individuals are disproportionately less likely to gain access to preventive screening that can sense ailments such as cancer. These issues raise concerns on why sexual orientation and gender identity should be included in the federally protected classes.

Conclusion

All the above four peers reviewed articles provide valid explanations of why sexual orientation and gender identity should be involved in the federally protected classes. At the beginning of 2010, the administration of President Obama included gender identity in the federally protected classes from discrimination under the power of EEOC (Equal employment opportunity commission). The act of fair housing also prohibited housing discrimination on the content of color, race, sex, national origin, disability, and familial status. The US Department of housing and urban (HUD) is dedicated to investigating the obliteration of the Fair Housing Act for everyone despite their gender identity and sexual orientation. This incident, therefore, means the school district cannot allow any person in the community school to be harassed or treated differently based on lesbianism, bisexual, gay, or rather what people think of them. Those students struggling with sexual identity usually experience massive pressure and sometimes conflicts. The department of education Massachusetts discovered that about twenty –three percent of lesbian and gay students reported violations that needed medical attention as compared to the three percent of their peers, and about twenty-two percent had dropped school in the following year since they felt unsafe, unlike the other four percent. If a school is public, federal law prohibits any form of harassment and discrimination based on prejudice against gay, lesbian, teachers, and bisexual students. Similarly, if one receives national funds, the federal law abolishes sexual harassment even though some states and cities have their independent laws that prohibit gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination.

Reference

Calzo, J. P., Antonucci, T. C., Mays, V. M., & Cochran, S. D. (2011). Retrospective Recall of Sexual Orientation Identity Development among gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults. Developmental psychology, 47(6), 1658. doi.org/10.1037/a0025508

Lau, H. (2018). Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination. Brill Research Perspectives in Comparative Discrimination Law, 2(2), 1-52. https://doi.org/10.1163/24522031-12340004

Morgan, E. M. (2013). Contemporary issues in sexual orientation and identity development in emerging adulthood. Emerging Adulthood, 1(1), 52-66. doi.org/10.1177/2167696812469187

Nunn, J. (2019). SKY HIGH. Assessed: http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/images/publications/wct/2019-01-02/current.pdf

Cahill, S., Singal, R., Grasso, C., King, D., Mayer, K., Baker, K., & Makadon, H. (2014). Do ask, do tell: high levels of acceptability by patients of routine collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data in four diverse American community health centers. PloS one, 9(9). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107104