56 major companies speak out against Trump’s trans erasure plan

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Demonstration in New York City against the planned anti-trans policy (GLAAD / Twitter)

More than 50 major corporations have condemned the Trump Administration’s plan to further exclude transgender people from federal discrimination protection.

According to a New York Times report, the Department of Health and Human Services will release regulations to legally define the term “sex” under the Title IX anti-discrimination law to only recognise male or female as determined by the genitals that a person was born with.

If successful, the Trump Administration would effectively eradicate federal recognition of an estimated 1.4 million transgender or gender non-binary Americans.

In response to these reports and “a rising tide of legislative and administrative attempts to further marginalise transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex people”, the companies issued a statement on Thursday expressing their solidarity with this community.

The companies collectively boast more than 2.4 trillion dollars in revenue, represent nearly 4.8 million employees and include big names such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, JPMorgan, Levi Strauss, Nike, Twitter and Uber.

Fourteen LGBTQ+ community organisations, led by Out Leadership and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), organised the effort to secure corporate signatories.

Jay Brown, the HRC Acting Senior Vice President for Programs, Research, and Training, said that the businesses “are speaking out in one united voice to make clear they stand with the transgender community against the alarming effort by the Trump-Pence administration to gut enforcement of existing civil rights protections.”

Below is the full statement.

Business statement for transgender equality
November 1, 2018

We, the undersigned businesses, stand with the millions of people in America who identify as transgender, gender non-binary, or intersex, and call for all such people to be treated with the respect and dignity everyone deserves.

We oppose any administrative and legislative efforts to erase transgender protections through reinterpretation of existing laws and regulations. We also fundamentally oppose any policy or regulation that violates the privacy rights of those that identify as transgender, gender non-binary, or intersex.

In the last two decades, dozens of federal courts have affirmed the rights and identities of transgender people. Cognizant of growing medical and scientific consensus, courts have recognised that policies that force people into a binary gender definition determined by birth anatomy fail to reflect the complex realities of gender identity and human biology.

Recognising that diversity and inclusion are good for business, and that discrimination imposes enormous productivity costs (and exerts undue burdens), hundreds of companies, including the

undersigned, have continued to expand inclusion for transgender people across corporate America. Currently more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 have clear gender identity protections; two-thirds have transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage; hundreds have LGBTQ+ and Allies business resource groups and internal training efforts.

Transgender people are our beloved family members and friends, and our valued team members. What harms transgender people harms our companies.

We call for respect and transparency in policy-making, and for equality under the law for transgender people.

Accenture
Adobe Systems Inc.
Airbnb
Altria Group
Amalgamated Bank
Amazon
American Airlines
Apple
Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP)
Bank of America
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade
BNY Mellon
Cargill
Cisco Systems Inc.
Citi
Clifford Chance
Corning Incorporated
Corteva Agriscience™, the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont
Deutsche Bank
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Facebook
Fastly, Inc.
Google
Hogan Lovells International LLP
HSBC
IBM Corporation
Intel Corporation
Intuit Inc.
Iron Mountain
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co.
LinkedIn
Lush Handmade Cosmetics
Lyft
Marriott International
MassMutual
MGM Resorts International
Microsoft Corp.
Nike Inc.
PepsiCo
Replacements, Ltd.
Ropes & Gray
Royal Bank of Canada
S&P Global
Salesforce
Sheppard Mullin
Sodexo Inc.
Splunk
State Street Corporation
The Coca-Cola Company
The Dow Chemical Company
TiVo Corporation
Trillium Asset Management
Twitter Inc.
Uber
Warby Parker

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