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Alabama 37.3 CEO Brief ALABAMA LGBT+ Business Climate Score Out Leadership’s Business Climate Index for the 50 United States is an assessment of states’ performance on LGBT+ inclusion. It measures the impact government policies and prevalent attitudes have on the LGBT+ people residing in each state, quantifying the 37.3 economic imperatives for inclusion and the costs of discrimination. It equips business and state leaders with a clear sense of the most impactful steps states can take to make themselves more hospitable to forward-thinking, innovative, inclusive businesses. out of a possible 100 points Legal & Nondiscrimination Protection. The state lacks nondiscrimination or hate crimes protections for LGBT+ people. Changing gender markers on driver’s licenses and birth certificates both require gender affirmation surgery. Two of the 20+ murders 4 / 20 of black transgender women in 2019 took place in Alabama. Youth & Family Support. The state has no ban on conversion therapy. Children in foster care are not protected on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Adoption agencies that eschew federal funding can discriminate against potential LGBT+ parents on religious grounds. The state is also one of six states where “No Promo Homo” laws, which prohibit or limit the mention or discussion of homosexuality and transgender 6 / 20 identity in public schools, are still approved. Political & Religious Attitudes. The state doesn’t have a standalone religious exemption law, but there is a “religious freedom amendment” to the state’s constitution. Alabama has one democratic U.S. Senator and one republican one, and their records on LGBT+ rights fall along party lines. The governor upholds existing protections but 9.6 / 20 doesn’t champion strengthening them. Health Access & Safety. Neither Medicaid nor state employee insurance have explicit language mandating trans-inclusive coverage. Knowingly transmitting HIV can be / 20 prosecuted as a misdemeanor.• 5.67 Work Environment & Employment. 11% of transgender employees in Alabama reported being harassed in the past year due to their gender identity and 18% report mistreatment such as being forced to use the wrong bathroom at work. 25% of LGBT+ individuals in Alabama report food insecurity, compared to 20% of their non-LGBT+ peers (20%). A high percentage (37%) of LGBT+ individuals in Alabama report making less than $24,000 per year. 8% of LGBT+ individuals report unemployment in Alabama, 12 / 20 compared to 6% of the non-LGBT+ population. Note on Methodology. To read a detailed explanation of our rationale and methodology, including our data standards and practices, please visit www.outleadership.com/stateindex *HIV criminalization laws are discriminatory and ineffective. These laws fail to account for advances made in treating and controlling HIV, may deter people from getting tested and seeking treatment, and can exacerbate the stigma targeting people living with HIV and LGBT+ people. How to Use This Brief As a business leader, you have the opportunity to create change for LGBT+ people wherever you work – both within your company, and in the places you do business. This brief provides valuable information to inform your conversations with: Internal Staff: Ensure that staff at your company are aware of the laws and attitudes impacting LGBT+ people wherever they work, and that they’ve adopted the appropriate internal policies for their location. Community Leaders: In meetings with community leaders, particularly those focused on economic development, we encourage business leaders to bring up a state’s performance on the State Business Climate Index, and the details shared in the CEO Briefs, in an appropriate way. We hope that these tools will help executives explain how LGBT+ inclusive policies are part of their companies’ best practices, and acknowledged as global standards. Please note that you are the best person to judge whether you have the ability to have such a conversation with a local leader in an appropriate way. Your Community Affairs officer, Diversity & Inclusion head, or equivalent may be appropriate to include in these conversations. In-country Business Partners: In conversations with business partners, when appropriate, ask them what they’re doing to address LGBT+ inclusion, and help explain why inclusion positively impacts your ability to conduct business. Talking Points “ 3.1% of Alabamans identify as LGBT+. Conservatively, that’s LGBT+ personal income of $6.4 billion – it’s a market my business can’t afford to ignore.” “ When LGBT+ employees don’t feel welcome at work, they’re less likely to stay, and employee turnover is a drag on the state economy and business competitiveness. It costs companies an average of $8,106 to replace an employee in Alabama, and it can cost upwards of $270,000 to replace senior executives. Alabama and the businesses operating there have strong incentives to create inclusive workplaces in the interest of keeping these costs down.” “Nondiscrimination policies allow LGBT+ people to participate more fully in the economy.” “ Millennial and Gen Z consumers prefer to do business with companies with LGBT+ friendly advertising and policies – 54% say they’re more likely to choose an LGBT+ inclusive brand over a competitor – which is why it’s important that Alabama work to foster a business environment where being inclusive is supported.” “ Alabama has a regressive attitude towards trans-inclusive health coverage. Treating trans people as unequal makes us look complicit if we choose to do business in Alabama – equality is good for everyone’s bottom line.” State Index Heat Map Out Leadership's Business Climate Index combines verifiable data on LGBT+ people’s lived experiences with economic data to help business leaders and policymakers understand the costs created by policies that create minority stress. The legal and cultural situation for LGBT+ people varies widely across the country. This map, based on each state's total score, illustrates the states where LGBT+ people are empowered to participate more fully and openly in the economy, and the states that are lagging behind. CT CT 31.2 90 31.2 90 Regional Context – The Southeast Out Leadership and FCB partnered on original market research into the attitudes of American workers on LGBT+ inclusion, which fielded in March and April 2019. The full results will be launched Southeast Region in the Spring of 2020; we are able to share preliminary regional comparisons in this brief. Alabama Arkansas LGBT+ workers in the Southeast are the most likely to be out at work (54.4%), but they are also 25% Florida more likely to feel that covering behaviors are important for workplace success. More broadly, non- Georgia LGBT+ workers in this region preferred for businesses to demonstrate their support for the LGBT+ Kentucky community using internal initiatives (like hiring more LGBT employees and creating more inclusive Louisiana HR policies). However, this group was 57% less likely to approve of more public demonstrations of Mississippi support (like withdrawing sponsorship from sporting events in less inclusive areas). LGBT+ workers North Carolina in this region are 39% more likely to support inclusive businesses and 17% more likely to consider South Carolina LGBT+ friendliness in making spending decisions compared to the non-LGBT workers nationwide. Tennessee However, there is a perception that state leadership speaks about the LGBT+ community in a more Virginia negative way (39% more likely than nationwide), which could partially explain why LGBT+ workers in West Virginia the Southeast are 19% more likely to say that they would be open to moving to a state with better LGBT+ support. Unless otherwise noted, all comparisons for more or less likely are compared to the National results. Regional results are based off of 1,500 respondents (LGBT+ and Non-LGBT+ responses have been weighted to be age-representative for each audience in each region). National results are based off of 600 respondents representative of each audience (LGBT+ vs Non-LGBT+). Current Legal Status of LGBT+ People Legal Status of the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community The state’s nondiscrimination laws don’t extend to sexual orientation or gender identity, but two cities – Birmingham and Montevallo – offer those protections. Mobile is entertaining a proposal to become the third. State employees are not protected from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. There are no explicit legal protections for youths in foster care on the basis or sexual orientation or gender identity. Adoption agencies that don’t receive state or federal funding can use religious belief as a basis for declining prospective parents. Same-sex adoptive parents can both be listed on a child’s birth certificate. The law is nebulous on whether same-sex couples with biological children also have this right: the “mother” on the state’s birth certificate form is whoever birthed the child, and the other parental blank says “husband.” The state is one of six states where “No Promo Homo” laws, which prohibit or limit the mention or discussion of homosexuality and transgender identity in public schools, are still approved. The Alabama Religious Freedom Amendment was passed in 1998 as a state constitutional amendment. HIV positive people who do anything that either transmits, or could transmit, the virus can be charged with a misdemeanor. The state’s hate crimes laws have no protections or provisions for sexual orientation or gender identity. Legal Status
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