Gender & Sex Discrimination Attorney in Los Angeles

Common Forms of Gender & Sex Discrimination in the Workplace

Discrimination doesn’t always look the same. Some forms are overt. Others accumulate through patterns that are harder to name but just as damaging. These are the most common types we see:

• Unequal Pay: Paying employees of one sex less than employees of another for substantially similar work, even when titles or locations differ.
• Promotion & Advancement Denial: Blocking qualified employees from management roles or higher-level opportunities based on gender rather than performance or qualifications.
• Gender-Based Stereotyping: Making employment decisions based on assumptions about how a person of a given gender should behave, communicate, or lead.
• Hostile Work Environment: Gender-based conduct, including derogatory comments, harassment, or offensive behavior, that is severe or pervasive enough to interfere with an employee’s ability to do their job.
• Discriminatory Hiring: Considering gender when making hiring decisions, including pre-employment inquiries about marital status or plans to have children.
• Gender Identity & Gender Expression Discrimination: Adverse treatment of an employee because of their gender identity, gender expression, or use of a name or pronouns consistent with their gender identity.
• Retaliation: Adverse employment action taken against an employee because they reported gender or sex discrimination or participated in a related investigation.

California & Federal Laws That Protect Los Angeles Workers

Workers in Los Angeles are protected by overlapping state and federal laws. California’s protections are generally broader and carry longer filing deadlines than their federal counterparts.

California Fair Employment & Housing Act (FEHA)

FEHA prohibits gender and sex discrimination in hiring, promotion, pay, and termination. It applies to employers with five or more employees and explicitly covers gender identity and gender expression as protected categories. Under FEHA, employees generally have three years from the date of a discriminatory act to file a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), the state agency that enforces FEHA.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Title VII is the federal law prohibiting employment discrimination based on sex. It applies to employers with 15 or more employees and covers compensation, benefits, promotions, and other terms and conditions of employment. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces Title VII at the federal level.

Equal Pay Protections

Both the federal Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the California Equal Pay Act prohibit paying employees of one sex less than the other for substantially similar work. California’s version uses a broader definition of “substantially similar” based on skill, effort, and responsibility. It also prohibits using prior salary history as the sole justification for a pay differential and requires equal pay across different locations of the same business.