ABSTRACT
In recent years the rights of and legal protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people have been at the center of heated debates in the United States. In the absence of a federal law specifically protecting LGBT employees and job seekers, one debate has focused on sexual orientation discrimination in employment; that is, the behaviors and practices—both deliberate and unconscious—that disadvantage individuals of a particular sexual orientation compared to individuals of another sexual orientation in employment contexts. Although scholars have produced a considerable amount of research relevant to this debate, most of the literature has focused on wage inequality and has produced little direct evidence about the difficulties that LGBT people may face in obtaining a job. This is a significant omission, because hiring discrimination is an important inequality-generating mechanism with potentially powerful effects on a job seeker’s access to a broad range of opportunities.
