Job Protections Improve Mental Health Among LGBTQ+ Workers

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TUESDAY, Jan. 21, 2025 (HealthDay New) — A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision barring job discrimination significantly eased the minds of LGBTQ+ workers, a new study says.

The court extended employment protections to nearly 3.6 million LGBTQ+ people in 12 states with its 2020 Bostock v Clayton County decision.

As a result, those workers experienced improvements in their mental health, according to a study published Jan. 15 in JAMA Psychiatry.

“Implementation of a federal ban on sexual orientation–based employment discrimination after the Bostock decision was associated with significant relative reductions in poor mental health days and severe mental distress among employed sexual minority adults,” a team led by Michael Liu, a student at Harvard Medical School, concluded.

The Bostock decision affirmed that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

To see the effect that had on LGBTQ+ people, researchers analyzed federal survey data that regularly assesses the mental health of Americans.

The team specifically looked at the mental health of LGBTQ+ workers in the 12 states where work protections were extended — Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

They compared those workers to LGBTQ+ folks employed in nine states that had independently passed employment protection prior to the Bostock decision — Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Workers in the states that benefitted from the decision had one day fewer of poor mental health per month — nine days compared with 10 days in states with existing protections, results show.

Those workers also experienced a 3.5% decline in their rate of severe mental illness compared to the states with existing protections, researchers found.

“Our findings are congruent with prior research showing that policies protecting the rights of sexual minority adults are associated with improved mental health outcomes,” the research team stated.

There are a number of reasons why the decision might have improved workers’ mental health, researchers said.

LGBTQ+ workers might have perceived the decision as a sign of social acceptance, reducing their stress, researchers speculated. 

“In fact, recent sociologic research has shown that the Bostock decision engendered increased favorability of sexual and gender minority people with the general public,” the team wrote.

Workers’ mental health also might have been improved due directly to their expanded protections, researchers added. They wouldn’t have needed to hide their sexual identity and would have been less likely to suffer discrimination or exclusion on the job.

More information

The U.S. Department of Labor has more on LGBTQ+ workplace protections.

SOURCE: JAMA Psychiatry, Jan. 15, 2025

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