Gender Discrimination

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Virginia Human Rights Act prohibit employers from discriminating against employees because of sex. Sex discrimination can include sex-based discrimination because of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or pregnancy.

• Terminating, demoting, or denying promotions to you even though you perform your job better than co-workers of the opposite sex who were not fired, demoted, or denied promotions;

• Having a policy that may sound neutral but actually favors one sex over the other;

• Denying you a job for which you were the best qualified, while giving the job to a less-qualified member of the opposite gender;

• Providing lower pay or benefits to you than to co-workers of the opposite sex, for doing the same jobs under similar working conditions;

• Treating you less favorably than co-workers because you are pregnant or took time off for the birth of a child;

• Not hiring you for a job because the employer prefers to hire only members of the opposite sex for that type of job;

• Subjecting you to unwelcome advances, offensive sexual comments, or other types of sexual harassment.