Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation, the educational arm of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization, and SAGE, the world’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ older adults, released the first edition of the Long-Term Care Equality Index (LEI). This national benchmarking tool evaluates long-term care communities based on the equity and inclusion of their LGBTQ residents and patients. This initial report does not score long-term care communities, but instead includes research data on how many long-term care communities currently have LGBTQ-inclusive policies, and lays out how organizations can participate in the LEI and improve their policies.
See original press release here
Despite significant progress, LGBTQ people lack basic legal protections in states across the country, including consistent and explicit anti-discrimination protections. Without these protections, long-term care communities must adopt their own LGBTQ non-discrimination policies to protect their residents and employees. However, the HRC Foundation and SAGE’s research found that that is rarely the case. Of the long-term care communities where enumerated residential non-discrimination policies existed, only 18% had an LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination policy. Of the long-term care communities where enumerated employee non-discrimination policies were found, only 36% had an LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination policy.
