LGBT News Areas where strides forward have NOT been made

Here's an article I saw about 5 things still not possible for the GLBT community in some states. Each of these, in the slide show, will register different visceral reactions. For me, the one on Slide 6 of 7, about employment, is the most offensive. And this is an issue in 29 states, in this day and age. This should have been handled a long time ago.

5 things you still can

 

Agreed. Not every one has a partner / significant other, so some are not affected by this, but almost everyone needs a job. I once worked in an oasis of blue in a red state, adjacent to a blue state, and certainly did NOT look up state positions on civil protections before accepting a position, believing my competence would make the situation work and because I had no reason to believe it would be an issue. While I was not dismissed, the simple fact that I did not fit in with what they thought would be a fit made for subsequent increasing levels of harassment, and I switched employers. I was able to make a nice dent by leaving them at a time when I had the specific information and experience to lead up a major assignment, and they asked me to reconsider staying, and included a nice raise. I'm sure I would have been dismissed after this major assignment was completed, based upon minutia they would have scavenged for which would have been used as the focal point for the decision. I learned that my departure did in fact put this assignment into a tailspin, for which I am not responsible because I got another job, but the cumulative effect from the experience is still something that registers with me.

On the positive side, this is more of an exception rather than the rule, even in the red states. It's when it does happen that it makes news or that people are quite taken aback by it when it happens to them or someone they know.