Cities are expanding their civil rights laws to cover polyamory, as well as asexuality and pansexuality, in proposals that are beginning to spread to the state level and raise potential compliance issues for companies.
At least half a dozen cities enacted measures this year that broadened their antidiscrimination ordinances, including in employment, to protect those with diverse sexualities or relationship structures. New York City is considering a similar measure, and a statewide proposal is in the works for Oregon’s 2027 legislative session.
The most recent ordinance, adopted in Seattle, extends the definition of sexual orientation to cover pansexuality, asexuality, and “actual or perceived consensual relationships involving multiple partners such as non-monogamous relationships.” Portland, Ore., approved a broader measure in April that redefined the city’s ban on family status discrimination to include multi-parent, multi-partner, multi-generational, non-monogamous, and aromantic families and households.
These novel changes to antibias laws aim to strengthen protections as more Americans diverge from the nuclear family model of two parents plus their children, an arrangement that accounted for less than one-fifth of households in 2020 Census data. Their advancement adds to a steadily growing list of protected categories in civil rights law, mostly among Democratic-majority city councils and state legislatures.
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