The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGBTQ individuals, including advocating for same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation, and HIV/AIDS advocacy. The organization has a number of legislative initiatives as well as supporting resources for LGBTQ individuals.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is legislation proposed in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or, depending on the version of the bill, gender identity, by employers with at least 15 employees.
The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) is a nonprofit social equality organization founded in 2003 by transgender activist Mara Keisling in Washington, D.C. The organization works primarily in the areas of policy advocacy and media activism with the aim of advancing the equality of transgender people in the United States. Among other transgender-related issue areas, NCTE focuses on discrimination in employment, access to public accommodations, fair housing, identity documents, hate crimes and violence, criminal justice reform, federal research surveys and the Census, and health care access.
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the United States are among the most advanced in the world, with public opinion and jurisprudence changing significantly since the late 1980s.
Thomas Edward Perez is an American politician and attorney currently serving as senior advisor to the president of the United States and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, holding both positions since June 2023. Perez previously served as the United States Secretary of Labor (2013–2017), the chair of the Democratic National Committee (2017–2021), and United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights (2009–2013).
Christine M. Griffin is an American lawyer. From 2011 to 2013 she served as Assistant Secretary for Disability Policies and Programs for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
Paul Steven Miller was the Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law. He was a Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for almost 10 years, and in 2009 he was chosen to serve as a special assistant to President Barack Obama. Miller, who had the genetic condition achondroplasia was 4 feet 5 inches (135 cm) tall. He was known as a leader in the disability rights movement, and an expert on anti-discrimination law and international disability rights.
Chai Rachel Feldblum is an American legal scholar and activist for disability and LGBT rights. A former law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, she served as Commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She was nominated to the position by president Barack Obama in 2009. In April 2010, she received a recess appointment to the EEOC, and in December 2010 she was confirmed by the United States Senate. The Senate confirmed her in December 2013 for a second term on the Commission which expired in July 2018.
Seth D. Harris is an American attorney, academic, and former government official. Harris served under President Barack Obama as the 11th United States Deputy Secretary of Labor from 2009 to 2014. Nominated in February 2009, Harris was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in May 2009, and became acting Secretary of Labor for six months following the resignation of Hilda Solis in January 2013. Harris was also a member of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation's Board of Directors. Harris stepped down from his post on January 16, 2014.
LGBTQ history in the United States consists of the contributions and struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people, as well as the LGBTQ social movements they have built.
LGBT employment discrimination in the United States is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is encompassed by the law's prohibition of employment discrimination on the basis of sex. Prior to the landmark cases Bostock v. Clayton County and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2020), employment protections for LGBT people were patchwork; several states and localities explicitly prohibit harassment and bias in employment decisions on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, although some only cover public employees. Prior to the Bostock decision, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) interpreted Title VII to cover LGBT employees; the EEOC determined that transgender employees were protected under Title VII in 2012, and extended the protection to encompass sexual orientation in 2015.
Executive Order 13672, signed by U.S. President Barack Obama on July 21, 2014, amended two earlier executive orders to extend protection against discrimination in hiring and employment to additional classes. It prohibited discrimination in the civilian federal workforce on the basis of gender identity and in hiring by federal contractors on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity.
LGBTQ+ conservatism in the United States is a social and political ideology within the LGBTQ+ community that largely aligns with the American conservative movement. LGBTQ+ conservatism is generally more moderate on social issues than social conservatism, instead emphasizing values associated with fiscal conservatism, libertarian conservatism, and neoconservatism.
Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is a Honduran American transgender rights activist and the first openly transgender person to work as a White House staffer. She was also the first openly transgender legislative staffer to work in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. She served as director of external relations at the National Center for Transgender Equality, based in Washington, D.C. She is a longtime advocate and public policy specialist on matters concerning human rights, gender, and LGBT people.
Victoria Ann Lipnic is an American lawyer and public figure. She served in multiple senior United States government positions. She was Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), nominated to two terms by President Barack Obama, 2010 – 2020.) She served as Chair (Acting) of the EEOC under President Donald J. Trump from 2017 – 2019. Prior to her appointments to the EEOC, she was Assistant Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush. The United States Senate confirmed her unanimously to each of these positions.
The social policy of the Donald Trump administration was generally socially conservative. As of 2016, Donald Trump described himself as pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest, and circumstances endangering the life of the mother. He said he was committed to appointing justices who may overturn the ruling in Roe v. Wade. Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices during his presidency. All of them later went on to vote in the majority opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court case overturning Roe v. Wade and ending federal abortion rights nationwide.
The legal and regulatory history of transgender and transsexual people in the United States begins in the 1960s. Such legislation covers federal, state, municipal, and local levels, as well as military justice. It reflects broader societal attitudes which have shifted significantly over time and have impacted legislative and judicial outcomes.
This is a list of notable events in LGBTQ rights that took place in the 2010s.
Sharon McGowan is an American lawyer and a partner at Katz Banks Kumin LLP, an employment and whistleblower firm based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining KBK, she was the legal director and chief strategy officer for Lambda Legal. McGowan was an Obama administration appointee in the role of Acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel for Policy at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. She also served as Principal Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section of the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. In 2019, she was honored with the Stonewall Award, bestowed by the American Bar Association's Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
Marsha C. Botzer is a Seattle based activist and non-profit administrator who has been working in the Transgender rights movement since the mid-1970s. Botzer is a trans woman herself. She founded Ingersoll Gender Center in Seattle in 1977, making it the oldest non-profit organization working in the space of transgender rights. Botzer was also an early member of Hands Off Washington and a founding member of Equality Washington, as well as Out in Front Leadership Project.
