Dear Friend,
Happy Pride Month! 🏳️🌈
Pride is a beautiful celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community – of the brave individuals, the moms and parents past and present, who have fought to make our country safer, stronger, and more colorful. It’s a time to honor the joy of living authentically.
Celebrating our joy is vital, but so is paying the rent and buying groceries. Our families can’t truly thrive when discrimination follows LGBTQIA+ workers right onto the clock, limiting their financial security.
That’s why today, on LGBTQIA+ Equal Pay Awareness Day, moms, dads, gender-expansive parents, caregivers, and allies are raising our collective voices. We need to stop the discriminatory pay gaps holding our community back.
➡️Take action now: Protect LGBTQIA+ workers and demand equal pay!
Tell the EEOC: Don’t roll back data collection & protections for LGBTQIA+ workers!
While data for LGBTQIA+ workers is scarce, research from the Human Rights Campaign shows that LGBTQIA+ workers earn only about 90 cents for every dollar the median worker in the U.S. earns. [1]
But the community is not a monolith. When race, sexuality, and gender identity intersect, the gap widens drastically – Latine LGBTQIA+ workers and trans women are among the lowest earners in the country. [2] Discriminatory workplace practices are actively denying families the economic security they deserve.
This has to end – especially for the next generation. One in four U.S. high schoolers now identify as non-heterosexual. [3] They are entering the workforce right now, and we must build a safer, more equitable world for them.
➡️ Tell the EEOC: Don’t roll back data collection and protections for workers.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is legally mandated to protect workers from discrimination. Instead, under its current leadership, the Commission is actively undermining protections in very damaging ways by:
- Refusing to Enforce the Law: EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas has aligned the agency with a discriminatory Executive Order, refusing to enforce employment protections for transgender and nonbinary workers. [4]
- Erasing Critical Guidance: The agency rolled back technical assistance and rescinded comprehensive 2024 workplace harassment guidance that explicitly protected workers based on sexual orientation and gender identity. [5]
- Eliminating the Data: Now, they are moving to halt the 60-year-old EEO-1 demographic data collection. Without this data, it becomes nearly impossible to track, prove, and punish systemic pay discrimination. [6]
We won’t let a political agenda dictate the livelihoods of millions of workers. We are demanding the EEOC fulfill its actual mandate.
When we raise our voices, decision-makers have to listen. Let’s make some noise 🗣️
➡️ Take action now: Protect LGBTQIA+ workers and demand equal pay!
Please share this with your friends and family so they can take action with us, too.
Thank you!
– Taylor, Ruth, Kristin and the whole MomsRising.org & MamásConPoder Team
P.S. – Lived experiences are our most powerful tool for change. Have you ever experienced pay discrimination? Please share your story with us. We deliver these real, personal accounts directly to lawmakers to show those in power exactly what is at stake and why change cannot wait.
References:
[1] [2] Human Rights Campaign | The Wage Gap Among LGBTQ+ Workers in the United States
[3] News Center | One in Four U.S. Adolescents Identify as Non-Heterosexual, Comparative Analysis Finds
[4] PBS News | EEOC moves to drop transgender discrimination cases to comply with Trump’s order
[5] U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission | EEOC Commission Votes to Rescind 2024 Harassment Guidance
[6] U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission | Removing Gender Ideology and Restoring the EEOC’s Role of Protecting Women in the Workplace