For as long as the Center for American Progress has tracked this data, LGBTQIA+ people have experienced unemployment at rates that outpace the general population. Earlier last year, the same workers were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19-related layoffs. While employment discrimination against LGBTQIA+ employees has been broadly illegal in California for some time, inequities remain, and as people who care about both LGBTQIA+ workers and the health of San Diego’s workforce broadly, we know it’s worth exploring the reasons why.
Inequity in employment starts early. Data from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and the Human Rights Campaign show that in-school harassment harms young people’s ability to focus on the learning they should be doing at school and decreases the grade point averages of LGBTQIA+ students who experience it.
San Diego Pride’s recently released LGBTQIA+ Youth Standards of Care document includes tools schools can use to work towards a better environment for their LGBTQIA+ students, but school action alone is not enough. Educational discrimination has knock-on effects in students’ careers as they enter adulthood — inequities in high school impact access to the degrees employers look for, providing one potential explanation for the disproportionate unemployment of LGBTQIA+ workers.
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