Pride in Our Workplace gathered LGBTQ+ and DEI leaders at the Boston Public Library in October 2023 to address the future of LGBTQ+ protections and DEI policy. Preceding this discussion, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) offered opening remarks, speaking to the legislative climate, challenges ahead, and the potential for corporate allyship.
We thank the GLAD team for sharing their insights with PIOW town hall attendees and, now, for allowing us to share their extended remarks with our online audience as well. See below for GLAD’s written and recorded remarks.
The Future of LGBTQ+ Rights and DEI Policy
The Path Toward Equality and Justice – written and presented by Beth Myers, GLAD Board member.
Thank you, everyone at Pride In Our Workplace, for organizing this discussion. It’s great to celebrate LGBTQ history month with all of you, and Jonathan and the accomplished leaders on this panel.
I’m Beth Myers. I’m a partner at Burns & Levinson and a board member of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, better known as GLAD, an organization working locally and nationally in the courts and through policy to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation.
Celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month in Massachusetts is special because so much of it happened right here. Next month is the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Judicial Court decision in GLAD’s lawsuit Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which made us the first state in the country where same-sex couples could legally marry. We’re honoring the 14 plaintiffs in that case with the Spirit of Justice Award on November 9.
The history of Goodridge is instructive for the current moment in the struggle for LGBTQ equality and justice.
While our community rejoiced on November 18, 2003, powerful leaders—Republican and Democrat, from our then governor and attorney general to the leaders of the state House and Senate—were already mobilizing to undermine or undo the ruling.
Crowds celebrating the legalization of same-sex marriage (Source: GLAD)
As Goodridge lead counsel Mary Bonauto described it at the time, “Opposition set in in about one nanosecond.”
The national response to Goodridge was similar. President George W. Bush called for a federal constitutional amendment to ban marriage for same-sex couples. Eleven states passed constitutional amendments in 2004 to foreclose a similar ruling, with many more following suit in subsequent elections.
Despite this awful backlash, our community prevailed. Here at home, we defeated attempts to amend the Massachusetts constitution, and momentum built from there. We got a national ruling for the freedom to marry from the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. That victory came with an important assist from the business community, when 379 businesses and corporations across the country signed on to an amicus brief arguing that marriage equality was good for their bottom line and our economy.
Today, support for same-sex marriage in this country remains at an all time high of 71 percent.
Great story, huh?
In light of that history, it’s logical to look at the flood of anti-LGBTQ legislation and legal action inundating us today and think “this too shall pass.” But truthfully, this is a unique moment in the LGBTQ movement—and not necessarily in the best way.
Because the more rights we gain, the more accepted, supported, and integrated into society we become. And the powerful forces that oppose dignity and fairness for LGBTQ people are well aware of that. They’re working overtime—and with some success—at rolling back our hard-won protections.
This year, extremist lawmakers in state legislatures across the country filed more than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills, 76 of which have thus far been signed into law. This unprecedented wave of legislation attacks the right of transgender youth to play school sports with their friends, receive essential medical care, and access bathrooms that align with their lived gender.
It seeks to punish parents that support their trans children, prohibit teachers from discussing LGBTQ issues in class, outlaw drag shows, ban LGBTQ-themed books, and restrict gender-affirming care for adults.
These efforts have real consequences. Parents are actually relocating their families from hostile states to places like Massachusetts – which passed strong protections for both reproductive and gender affirming health care – to ensure safety and continuity of care for their trans kids.
Armed right-wing militias, emboldened by anti-LGBTQ politics, have shown up at LGBTQ events, menacing organizers and attendees, or causing them to be canceled.
A California business owner was murdered by a man enraged by the Pride flag she hung outside her clothing shop.
Further compounding our struggle is a Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority that seems set on weakening LGBTQ anti-discrimination law, as with its narrow-but-alarming ruling in 303 Creative vs. Elenis. That ruling said for the very first time that a small subset of businesses could refuse service to same-sex couples.
The Dobbs ruling, which upended 50 years of legal precedent on abortion access, also implicates fundamental privacy protections used to establish LGBTQ rights. Justice Clarence Thomas made that clear in his Dobbs concurrence—he called for both Obergefell and the Lawrence v. Texas ruling that invalidated laws prohibiting gay sex to be reconsidered in light of Dobbs.
“GLAD is fighting back on as many fronts as possible.”
– Beth Myers
GLAD is fighting back on as many fronts as possible. In Alabama, we’re challenging the criminal ban on medical care for transgender adolescents. Though we won in the district court, the decision was overturned by a panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. We’ve recently asked the full 11th Circuit to reconsider the panel opinion and preserve the injunction barring the law from being enforced.
We’re preparing for a full trial in December in our challenge to Florida’s law banning health care for transgender adolescents, in addition to a challenge to the state’s restrictions on access to care for transgender adults.
In New Hampshire, we’re challenging a school censorship law that chills teachers’ ability to talk to students honestly about race, disability, and LGBTQ+ identities.
It feels great to fight back, to be honest. But litigation isn’t the only way we win—and a court decision, as we saw with the Goodridge ruling—isn’t ever the end of the battle.
In the aftermath of Dobbs and 303 Creative rulings, for example, our allies stepped up to mitigate vulnerabilities or potential vulnerabilities for LGBTQ people created by these decisions. In the wake of 303 Creative, for example, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Widmer signed comprehensive nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people into law.
Following Dobbs, President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, ensuring ongoing federal recognition of same-sex marriage should Obergefell be overturned.
Additionally, in response to efforts to ban access to trans health care, 15 states have adopted “provider shield laws” that protect access to medical care for transgender people. GLAD worked with state partners to pass such laws here in Massachusetts and in Vermont, with more to come.
We’re never powerless in this struggle for equality and justice. But more than ever we need strong allies. We need growth! The business community has an important role to play in this movement because directly or indirectly you set the terms for a lot of our public life—be it through product development, your physical infrastructure, your customer service policies, employee programs, advertising, and so forth.
It’s incumbent upon businesses who see themselves as LGBTQ+ allies to really examine their business policies and practices through an equity lens and adjust them accordingly. Connecticut, for example, recently updated its state employee health plan to cover fertility treatments for same-sex couples. Previously, only heterosexual couples deemed infertile could get coverage.
Employees also have a role to play in advocating for their employers to be better LGBTQ+ allies. Many workplaces today want to do the right thing, but aren’t sure how. It’s important for us as LGBTQ+ people or as allied individuals to bring our whole selves to work, participate in employee resource groups, and share our personal stories when appropriate to create visibility, educate others, and start conversations about stronger allyship.
I just want to emphasize that the business community has real power in this struggle. What Connecticut did with fertility coverage made news. It sets an example for other states and gives leverage to activists there. When Target removes Pride merchandise from its stores, it sends a message to the community about who is a valued customer and who isn’t.
You know, just because the Supreme Court says some businesses can discriminate against same-sex couples doesn’t mean you have to—you get to decide.
And we hope you all decide to join us. Our power lies in collective action—advocating in courts and in legislatures, and engaging at the ballot box, in grassroots activism, in everyday conversations, and patronizing businesses who actively support our right to live and love fully, and to celebrate our shared humanity.
Acknowledgements
Pride in Our Workplace thanks Beth Myers and the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) for offering opening remarks at our 2023 town hall event.
We encourage everyone to visit glad.org and learn how to support GLAD’s critical work to support the LGBTQ+ community.
