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Comment by jdsnape | Hacker News Reader

I was surprised by the tweet saying she was glad she lived in a state where it was illegal to fire her...does this imply there are states where it would be legal to fire someone who was transgender?

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Correct. Only 17 states protect against gender identity discrimination in the private sector. The Wikipedia article has a nice map of what is protected by state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_employment_discrimination...

Attempts to prohibit discrimination of sexual orientation and gender identity at the federal level (the same as sex, age, handicap, race, color, religion or national origin) via the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) have failed since 1994. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_... for details.

This site says there are 34 states where you can be fired for being transgendered, and 29 were you can be fired for being gay [1]. It gives a map showing the later.

[1] http://www.upworthy.com/29-states-can-fire-you-for-being-gay...

In a significant part of the US, you can fire people with no notice, with no recourse, for any/no reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

Not for any reason. Even in at-will employment states, you cannot fire someone on the basis that you discovered they are Christian (or Muslim, or Polish, or an Army veteran) and you don't like Christians (or Muslims, or Poles, or vets). Some are federally protected categories (termination on the basis of race/ethnicity/religion/gender is banned nationally under the Civil Rights Act of 1964), while others are prohibited by state laws. The status of firing someone because they are transgender under federal law is in flux; the EEOC issued an interpretation in 2012 that the 1964 ban on gender-related employment discrimination covers employment discrimination on the basis of transgender status, but I'm not sure whether this has been upheld by courts.

Of course, you can state no reason, and avoid leaving evidence of your real motivations, which might make it harder to prove: if you fire someone because you discovered they're Polish and you hate Poles, they can only win an unlawful-termination suit if they can prove that was the reason.

What's up with the Poles? Is it a thing? Just curious, asking as a Pole.

It's probably an example of anti-racism law.

Poles are not a race though. It's only nationality.

True, but U.S. anti-discrimination law rarely speaks directly about race, and instead uses the broader phrasing "race, color, or national origin", which covers pretty much anything race- or ethnicity-based.

Polish is an ethnicity, and also national origin. In many places in Europe anti-racism laws don't just say "race", they say "race/ethnicity"

In the United States there has been a long history of discrimination against national origin, especially of recent immigrants. Poles were just used as an example here of a national origin.

Check out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

for the most blatant forms.

North or South?

(I expect he'll say it was just an example, but Freud would disagree)

Which is why unemployment is lower than in Europe.

Europe isn't a country. It's a region with both strong and weak economies. A regional average of unemployment rates is invalid and useless for any meaningful statistics.

US: 7.3%

Strong economies in europe:

UK: 7.5%

Germany: 5.2%

Denmark: 6.7%

Norway: 3.1%

Weak economies in europe:

Greece 27.3%

Spain 26.7%

Italy: 12.5%

You can't average countries with completely different governments and economies to produce a regional figure, just like an average of the US' and Mexico's (4.25%) would be equally meaningless.

I'm not even sure these numbers are comparable. Who is gathering and reporting the statistics? Are they all using the exact same criteria and methodology? Unemployment is one of the most politically-charged statistics you can find. I'd be shocked if all these countries reported it accurately.

They are not comparable, nor is the current rate in the US with historic data since the definitions have changed multiple times. It is very much the same with comparing infant mortality since several EU countries count it very differently than the US.

A fair point, but is there an underlying reason (beyond having the Euro) why those economies are weak?

The point I was trying to make was an economic one - if it is easier to fire a mistake (either for perfomance or business-reasons), then it makes you more likely to hire people.

> The point I was trying to make was an economic one - if it is easier to fire a mistake (either for perfomance or business-reasons), then it makes you more likely to hire people.

Given the data you have no argument here. In germany it's fairly hard to fire someone who's out of probation. Still, we have a lower unemployment rate than the US.

That depends on whether you think ease of hiring/firing is the only variable at work.

I hope you're aware that Europe is not a country.

Mind this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eur... At least 14 European states with unemployment rate lower than USA.

Patronising, much? I live in England, of course I know Europe is more than one country.

Some things are more important that having the highest employment rate no matter what.

Heck, technically the USSR had full employment too!

The wording of https://www.aclu.org/translaw certainly suggests that many states do not prohibit discrimination against transgender people.

Maybe more a kind of protection if the mere reason for being fired is the outing as a transgender. In France a pregnant woman has some level of protection concerning her job.

You cannot fire someone for pregnancy status in the US either, that's considered gender discrimination.

Of course. In most states, you can be fired for anything, except race, sex, and religion. And in the rest, good luck proving you were fired for those reasons.

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