“These are not just words on paper—we care about you, we’re thinking about you, and we understand that you feel unsafe.”

It’s not because discrimination is over.

D.C. has explicit employment discrimination protections based on gender identity on the books.

D.C. has some of the highest complaint rates in the country, which experts believe is correlated to the implementation of the law rather than the District having more violations.

Looking beyond the striking numbers of the Office of Human Rights report.

The Office of Human Rights will launch enforcement actions against five employers.

The office handles a variety of workplace discrimination complaints, including race and disability—but the largest number of employment discrimination complaints that they received last year had to due with gender.

It is one of multiple events in D.C. ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26.

Businesses and volunteers—who have until July 8 to sign up—will be briefed on talking points to tell people who don’t normally think about disability issues.

With sex discrimination among the most commonly reported cases.