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On June 26, 2015, the LGBTQ rights movement reached a major milestone in the pursuit of full equality when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized marriage for same-sex couples nationwide. Despite this progress, more than 200 laws designed to allow discrimination toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people were introduced at the federal, state, and local levels in 2016. The massacre at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida, last June claimed the lives of nearly 50 people, the majority of whom identified as LGBTQ and people of color, and the number of transgender people murdered in 2016 simply for being themselves, almost all of whom were transgender women of color, was the highest yet recorded.

Violence and discrimination born of intolerance and marginalization continue to take lives and create barriers to equity and opportunity for LGBTQ people and their families, and in 2017 the Trump administration has presented new threats to this community. Members of Trump’s Cabinet and other agency appointees show clear animus against LGBTQ equality and have already taken steps to undermine protections for LGBTQ people, including rescinding the Obama administration’s guidance clarifying the rights of transgender students in schools, hampering efforts to collect data on sexual orientation and gender identity in federal surveys, and promoting a vision of so-called religious liberty that can be misused to discriminate against LGBTQ communities. With the federal government taking a reduced or even hostile role in protecting civil rights, further action can and must happen at the local level. The goal of achieving full legal and lived equality for LGBTQ people and their families can only be met with the support of local leaders who are in a position to make decisions that fully include and protect LGBTQ people.

Mayors, county executives, and other leaders who manage local jurisdictions have the power to take action and make a difference in the lives of LGBTQ people and families. Studies on the diffusion of policy ideas indicate that actions that begin at the local level have the potential to influence peer jurisdictions and can translate to changes at the state and federal levels in a phenomenon called the “snowball effect.”¹ Counties and municipalities that pass policies to better serve LGBTQ community members serve as case studies that provide policymakers with opportunities to evaluate and refine the effectiveness of emerging ideas that can be adopted in other jurisdictions.

In 2001, the City and County of San Francisco, under the leadership of its mayor, became the first major jurisdiction to remove exclusions that banned employee access to medically necessary transgender-specific care under employee health care plans.² Shortly thereafter, executives from across the country began adopting similar policies once questions about the policy were addressed during the implementation process. In 2016, 86 of the 506 cities that were rated in the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index had removed transgender exclusions from employee health care plans.³

Local executives manage governments that implement thousands of federal and state programs, in addition to creating community-based programs that are designed to serve residents at the local level. The programs administered by local jurisdictions are diverse and encompass health, human services, economic security, education, and criminal justice services. The total annual expenditures of all local governments across the United States amounts to $1.72 trillion.⁴ There are currently more than 3,000 county governments and nearly 36,000 active city and town governments in the United States.⁵ These county and local government entities employ millions of workers and provide direct services to every resident. Simply put, local governments affect the daily lives of every American in ways both big and small.

Differences in state laws authorizing the establishment of political subdivisions, including cities and counties, have resulted in the creation of numerous governance structures.⁶ Many localities have governing structures that centralize executive authority in an elected mayor or county executive. Certain localities require multiple elected officials to share and jointly exercise executive authority. Others elect council members who work with a manager who has executive authorities and is appointed to maintain operations beyond any individual elected member’s term.

Like the relationship between the federal government and the states, each state must address similar issues when deciding how—or whether—to share power with their localities. There are two general governing types in terms of how states delegate power: home rule and Dillon’s Rule.⁷ Home rule states grant broad powers to their municipalities to self-govern, although the exact extent varies by state, issue area, and—in some cases—by municipality.⁸ In states that utilize Dillon’s Rule, municipalities can only exercise those powers explicitly granted to them.⁹ To complicate matters, these approaches are not actually mutually exclusive, and many states use a combination of both.¹⁰ No state completely prohibits local government authority, and no local government is completely independent of and immune to state authority.¹¹ New York, for example, follows Dillon’s Rule, but New York City is granted certain home rule powers.¹²

Even with this complicated landscape, mayors, county executives, and other officials have the power to enact policy changes that advance LGBTQ equality. These leaders are often responsible for crafting executive budgets that frame debates around the allocation of resources for services that support the most vulnerable residents. They can issue executive and administrative orders that establish policies affecting programmatic, human resources, and operational functions. Under mayors and county executives, department or bureau directors—who report to executives—negotiate questions on program design and evaluation and often work with nonprofit and private organizational partners to leverage external resources to better address unmet needs in communities. In sum, these leaders and local officials have an array of tools at their disposal that can be used to improve the lives of LGBTQ people and their families.

This report offers a broad menu of options for nonlegislative actions that can be taken by executives managing local governments in order to better protect, serve, and include LGBTQ residents. Given the mandate of local officials, along with their expertise born from close contact with constituents, they have the power to make meaningful change across entire counties and cities down to individual communities. Although it may not be possible to adopt or implement every idea presented in this report in every locality, each can serve as a starting place for deliberating on which actions would be suitable in a particular jurisdiction and spurring new ideas for securing equality and fairness for all.

How to read this report

This report was designed to meet three main goals:

• To provide local executives with a broad range of policy ideas that can be implemented at the county, city, and school district level. Every jurisdiction in the country has a role to play in advancing LGBTQ equality and the aim of this report is to be responsive to the needs of local governments at different levels of development of their own LGBTQ policy agendas.
• To provide concise recommendations for change that allow executives to easily move from idea to action. While it is helpful to read recommendations within the context of other sections of the report, each is drafted to stand alone, making this document easier to search and utilize.
• To show the diversity of administrative actions that have been taken at the local level as well as the diversity of geographies and government actors that have taken these steps. This report features municipalities from all nine U.S. Census regions and 28 states plus the District of Columbia. Even more jurisdictions than those named in this report have taken action to advance the rights of their LGBTQ residents; those included here were chosen to demonstrate the broad range of support for LGBTQ equality across the United States.

The report is organized into three interrelated sections. The first section, “Governance,” recognizes the unique role that local executives play in overseeing the public workforce and setting policy priorities through procurement and budgeting processes. The recommended actions included in this section affect public employees, buildings and services, and how governments function. The second section, “Community Engagement,” presents ideas to increase collaboration between executive offices and local LGBTQ organizations and community members. These actions focus on the interface between government and its constituents. The third section, “Equality Across Policy Domains,” explores the needs of LGBTQ constituents across areas of life such as health care and economic policy, and shares actions local leaders can take to positively affect the lives of all residents while working to reduce disparities faced by LGBTQ communities.

Within each section, headers indicate administrative actions for local authorities to consider implementing in their city or county. The description of each recommended action includes research detailing the scope of the problem the action would address, examples of jurisdictions that have taken the same or similar actions, and—where appropriate—best practices to guide officials toward developing policies appropriate for their locality. Recognizing the wide variation in government structures and codes, these sections do not include specific language for model policies but rather present key principles for executing the ideas and include references to resource documents or experts in the field to help guide officials in developing individual policies. Text boxes throughout the report highlight examples of executive actions across a range of policy areas and geographic locations.

In addition to enacting policies that affect local constituents, city and county officials are themselves employers and service providers overseeing their own workforce and the operation of public services. In that role, mayors, county supervisors, and other municipal officials make determinations that affect the hiring and management of public workers, the benefits afforded to them, and the terms under which contractors and grantees do business within their jurisdictions. In addition, these officials oversee the management of public property and facilities such as libraries and other places of public accommodation that public employees, residents, and visitors use and rely on daily. This section makes recommendations for actions that local officials can take—from equal employment policies to contracting and licensing to training opportunities—that can advance LGBTQ equality within their own governing structures.

Employment and inclusion in local government

One of the first and most important steps county and city executives can take to support LGBTQ equality is to create an inclusive and diverse workplace. At present, there is still no federal law that explicitly prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, although some federal courts have ruled that gender identity- or sexual orientation-related employment discrimination qualifies as sex discrimination under Title VII.¹³ Currently 20 states and the District of Columbia have employment nondiscrimination laws that cover both sexual orientation and gender identity; two more states have such laws that cover only sexual orientation.¹⁴ Despite this progress, 50 percent of the U.S. population still lives in a state with no explicit statutory protection from being fired solely on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.¹⁵

With 43 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers and as many as 90 percent of transgender workers experiencing discrimination or harassment on the job, employment discrimination is a serious issue for LGBTQ communities.¹⁶ In addition, other forms of employment discrimination include LGBTQ individuals not being hired to begin with, or being fired for being who they are. A recent study by the Center for American Progress found that LGBTQ Americans are twice as likely to lack health insurance as their non-LGBTQ counterparts, and job insecurity only exacerbates this problem.¹⁷ This is especially concerning given that discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression leads to poor health outcomes for LGBTQ individuals.¹⁸ Allowing employment discrimination worsens the economic plight of this already vulnerable community: Families headed by same-sex couples make $15,500 less per year than families headed by different-sex couples and approximately 60 percent of transgender individuals report yearly incomes less than $25,000.¹⁹

LGBTQ discrimination not only harms workers; it is also bad for employers. When companies lose qualified employees, they encounter increased turnover expenses. Approximately 2 million American workers leave their jobs due to discrimination annually, costing businesses an estimated $64 billion.²⁰ On the flip side, the benefits of LGBTQ-inclusive workplace policies include lower health insurance costs, increased productivity, and higher job satisfaction among employees.²¹

Thinking about their own workforces, counties and cities can take action to protect their LGBTQ workers from discrimination. This is particularly important in the states that lack comprehensive nondiscrimination protections. By doing so, counties and cities can send a message to all LGBTQ constituents that their government values them. Below are steps that city and county executives can take to ensure nondiscrimination and inclusion in their own workforces, including implementing an LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination policy, instituting programs to recruit and retain LGBTQ employees, establishing or supporting offices of equity, funding LGBTQ employee resource groups, providing employees and contractors with paid leave, and offering health benefits that cover transition-related care.

Enact an LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination policy

County and city executives can take a big step toward equality in the workplace by prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination in employment and incorporating that prohibition into personnel policies. While many local governments have policies that protect against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, and religion, not all governments explicitly protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

County and city leaders should issue executive orders or mayoral directives that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression in government employment. Such a directive should explicitly direct human resources departments or other agency officials to update existing personnel policy to outline nondiscrimination guidelines and practices for the workplace. At the federal level, Executive Order 11478, issued by President Richard Nixon, prohibited discrimination against federal government workers on the basis of race, religion, or sex, among other characteristics, and was later expanded by President Bill Clinton to include sexual orientation and by President Barack Obama to include gender identity. Executive Order 11478 explicitly states that personnel policy and practice must incorporate the federal government’s nondiscrimination policy in each department and agency.²⁴

On the local level, including such provisions in employee handbooks and other workplace and personnel policies is important, even for localities that have an existing nondiscrimination ordinance inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression throughout the city or county. Specifically, incorporating LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination provisions integrates the policy into preexisting processes for hiring and other employment decisions, makes individual rights clear to employees, outlines for employers how to implement the policy in the context of each agency or department, and holds the employer accountable to following the policy.²⁵

Numerous cities and counties across the country have already issued LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination policies for their workforces, such as Goshen, Indiana. (see text box) In 2012, Daniel McCoy, the county executive of Albany, New York, issued an executive order adding gender identity and gender expression to the list of classes protected from workplace discrimination in the county government.²⁶ The executive order specifically prohibited discrimination in hiring, firing, job appointments, compensation, and treatment. It also directed the county’s human resources department to create clear guidelines on how to avoid such discrimination and allowed employees to file discrimination claims with the county division of affirmative action on those bases. In justifying the order, McCoy stated that no employee should be discriminated against because of gender identity and that such discrimination is counterproductive to creating a productive workforce and to attracting and retaining the best talent. The executive order also included a provision that required every agency manager to make “good faith efforts to ensure that all employees are afforded equal opportunity, without regard to gender identity.”²⁷

Even earlier, in 2011, Dwight C. Jones, the mayor of Richmond, Virginia, issued an executive directive prohibiting discrimination against city government employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.²⁸ Specifically, Jones’s directive relies on state and federal law and asserts that the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The directive prohibits agency heads, managers, supervisors, and any city employee from discriminating against another city employee or candidate and directs that “hiring, promotion, compensation, treatment, discipline, and termination” decisions be based on an employee’s merits, qualifications performance, and the city’s need.²⁹

In addition to issuing explicit protections for LGBTQ government employees, mayors should direct local agencies to interpret discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression as discrimination based on sex as prohibited under Title VII. In 2016, the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, issued just such a directive to his agencies.³⁰ Federal courts are increasingly recognizing that LGBTQ people are protected under Title VII, an argument that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has also asserted in litigation.³¹ For localities that have an ordinance prohibiting sex discrimination in employment, directing local agencies to interpret sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination as a form of sex discrimination may be a crucial way to apply protections to all LGBTQ workers in the community, not just those working in local government.

Take steps to recruit and retain LGBTQ employees

Through executive directives, counties and cities can instruct their human resources departments to engage in outreach efforts to LGBTQ community members, to consider diversity as an important factor in hiring decisions, and to enact policies that help to retain LGBTQ employees. Equal employment opportunity plans or other affirmative action steps, just like nondiscrimination policies, also should be incorporated into personnel policy. The executive directive should explicitly instruct the human resources department or other agency officials to update existing personnel policy such as employee handbooks to include or add an equal employment opportunity policy or plan. For example, federal Executive Order 11478—since amended to protect federal employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity—explicitly states that personnel policy and practice must incorporate the government’s equal opportunity policy and the realization of equal opportunity through a “continuing affirmative action program” in each department and agency.³²
Some local governments already engage in outreach to potential LGBTQ employees. For example, Jersey City, New Jersey, states on its website that it, “actively recruits LGBT individuals to serve within municipal agencies such as the [Jersey City] police and fire departments.”³³ Individual departments have also taken steps to recruit and retain LGBTQ employees. For example, the LGBTQ community liaison in the Norfolk, Virginia, police department has coordinated police force recruitment events at local LGBTQ pride festivals.³⁴ Since before 2000, the New York City Police Department, or NYPD, has actively recruited officers from the LGBTQ community.³⁵ Today, the NYPD’s Community Affairs Bureau LGBT Outreach Unit assists in recruiting potential officers from the LGBTQ community.³⁶

Local executives also have issued equal employment opportunity policies. In 2016, James Ritsema, the city manager of Kalamazoo, Michigan, issued an equal employment opportunity policy for city employment to increase opportunities based on classifications including race, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.³⁷ This came seven years after the city passed an LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance.³⁸ The policy states that the city will strive to inform diverse applicants of job openings through media and referral agencies, inform current employees of opportunities for promotions and consider restructuring or creating positions to provide promotional opportunities, and evaluate managers partly based on their efforts to increase diversity. Ritsema also made the city’s human resources director its equal employment opportunity officer, responsible for implementing the equal employment opportunity plan. The plan further explains how Kalamazoo will ensure equal employment opportunities, including informing managers and employees about the equal employment policy and the plan’s goals, modifying the city’s recruitment methods to reach diverse applicants, and monitoring employment decisions such as hiring, promotions, salary changes, and terminations to ensure compliance with the city’s nondiscrimination policy and to make corrective actions as necessary.³⁹ The Kalamazoo plan, unlike the policy, does not explicitly mention sexual orientation and gender identity, but in order to ensure that affirmative action steps apply to LGBTQ people, executives should ensure that any equal employment opportunity plan is explicitly LGBTQ-inclusive when it outlines recruitment, monitoring, and any other steps.

Prohibit city and county employees from discriminating in services, activities, and programs

LGBTQ people experience routine discrimination when attempting to access municipal services, potentially barring them from a wide range of services, from after-school arts and athletics programs for young people to life-saving housing and food assistance programs. A 2015 study found that transgender people who visit government benefits offices regularly experience discrimination: nearly one in five reported being denied equal treatment and/or being verbally harassed just in the past year.⁴²

Local executives can prohibit discrimination in public services and programs by adding sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to their city’s public notice of nondiscrimination. Nondiscrimination statements should make clear that no individual should be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subject to discrimination under any city or county programs, activities, or services on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression, in addition to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, age, and other relevant protected characteristics.

Many cities across the country have already banned discrimination in public services, including cities that have yet to pass an LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination law, such as Millington, Tennessee, and Decatur, Georgia. (see text box)

In addition to listing protected characteristics, nondiscrimination statements should clearly articulate specific forms of conduct that constitute prohibited discrimination. For example, municipal employees and programs should be prohibited from the following actions on the basis of protected characteristics:

• Denying services, financial aid, or other benefits provided under a municipal program
• Providing city services or benefits of a different quality, of a different quantity, or in a different manner than those provided to other persons
• Separating or segregating participants in any part of a municipal program
• Establishing different requirements or standards to receive a benefit or participate in a municipal program