A review of fair housing practices reveals lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are not a protected class in Tulsa.
Nathan Harvill in the city’s human rights department said although LGBT individuals aren’t protected by federal law, local governments can act.
"Cities are free to expand those protected classes as many as they want to," Harvill told city councilors during Thursday night's meeting. "Federal law is the floor, and local and state law is the ceiling."
Current federal law protects LGBT individuals from workplace discrimination.
Oklahomans for Equality Director Toby Jenkins said the group has taken to investigating housing complaints independently.
"First of all, to make sure we just don't have gays behaving badly," Jenkins said. "If you didn't pay your rent and you say you got thrown out of your apartment because you were gay, but actually you just haven't paid your rent in five months, then we want to address that and make sure that we don't cry wolf when there's not a wolf."
That has not been the case.
"In the seven years that we've really focused on this, we have at least 27 incidents of individuals who were discriminated against in housing based on their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their gender expression," Jenkins said. "At rental properties and, selling homes to people, in the lending."
A proposal to add LGBT individuals as a protected class is in front of the city’s human rights commission.
