Nearly half of LGBTQ Americans are still closeted at work, and that number hasn't moved in over a decade — even among the Chief Executives and C-suite leaders I've met at events built specifically to honor LGBTQ leadership. I've heard people at the top of their companies say, half-joking, "I wasn't sure I was going to accept this award, it's going to shine a spotlight on me at work."

In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Title VII protects LGBTQ workers from being fired for who they are. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, put it plainly: an employer who fires someone for being gay or transgender "fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex." That's the law now, even with conservative justices signing on.

The daily reality is still uneven. A colleague of mine was pulled aside before a company holiday party and told not to bring his same-sex partner — "you have a great future ahead of you, but that would limit your career trajectory." That's not a legal problem anymore. It's a culture problem, and the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index is a genuinely useful checklist if you want to know where your own company actually stands.