LGBTQ people should not have to fight for housing
It is our responsibility to win for those who come after us the freedom not to have to think about the hurdles of discrimination. To make sure they never have to feel that “my country and my community don’t welcome me.”
To ensure they don’t have to confront the realization that “this wasn’t built for me.”
For LGBTQ+ Ohio youth – and many others in our community, including people of color, seniors, and transgender and non-binary individuals – discrimination remains a tangible, daily barrier to pursuing lives of dignity, opportunity, and happiness free from stigma and harms that threaten their economic and physical well-being.
For all those Ohioans, nearly half a million of our neighbors, enacting federal nondiscrimination protections would prove a pivotal advance in combating harms, but also in changing expectations – not only about the lives that we in the LGBTQ+ community can hope to lead but also about the kind of opportunity society that all of us in Ohio can benefit from.
As a Black Jamaican immigrant son of a single mother who raised four of us until her death when I was just 14, I confronted discrimination from many quarters as a youth.
My Pentecostal community told me it was a sin to be gay. My Caribbean family taught me that being sensitive was wrong. Because I didn’t always speak colloquially and applied myself to my schoolwork, some peers taunted me for “acting white.”
But I persevered, earning a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in business administration. My education has enabled me to give back to the community, helping others to find the happiness that I’ve been able to enjoy.
Our programs at Stonewall Columbus strive to provide our community with the tools to overcome the discrimination they encounter, which is sometimes subtle, other times overt.
Most impacted by overt discrimination are people of color as well as transgender individuals, who may also be economically marginalized. We partner with banks and other organizations to provide them with economic empowerment tools and workplace skills.
Resources for the transgender community make up one of the most heavily trafficked parts of our website, but the apparent reluctance of many of those online visitors – especially trans women of color – to openly come to our North High Street community center illustrates the trauma and risk of danger many of them endure in their daily lives in all kinds of public spaces.
From our trailblazer community, we often hear about the difficulties they have finding senior housing opportunities that are proactive in ensuring an affirming and safe environment, and we work to help them make appropriate connections.
Still, it’s clear that senior housing developers in this region have not yet paid sufficient attention to creating policies and residences that welcome LGBTQ+ elders. One couple told me of their fear they might find it necessary to re-closet themselves in order to secure housing.
Experiencing discrimination, of course, is often subjective, but the unspoken ways in which LGBTQ+ people are turned away from opportunities and full access in society have real-life consequences on their prospects for success and happiness and their expectations about the future.
That, in turn, leads many LGBTQ+ Ohioans to question whether they want to continue making this state their home.
The migration of talented, motivated residents to other parts of the country represents a brain drain at odds with our state’s interests.
Columbus and all of Ohio have many pluses to offer – a reasonable cost of living, a well-educated population, and rich cultural resources. But large employers are interested, as well, in public policy and attitudes that welcome diversity and reward merit regardless of an individual’s identity.
Nondiscrimination protections would help protect the investment LGBTQ+ people have in Ohio and boost the state’s future economic prospects.
This year, Congress has a real opportunity to pass a comprehensive federal law. I hope Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman will help lead the way in securing these crucial protections.
Densil Porteous is executive director of Stonewall Columbus, the city’s LGBTQ+ community center and organization.
Nondiscrimination protections would help protect the investment LGBTQ+ people have in Ohio and boost the state’s future economic prospects.