The Human Rights Campaign released their 2017 Corporate Equality Index report on Monday, with 517 companies getting perfect scores and the list now including Walmart.
After adding insurance coverage for transgender employees in 2016, the largest retail store in the U.S. now joins notables such as Apple, General Electric, Ford Motors, CVS, and Verizon with 12 out of the top 20 companies now getting a perfect score of 100. The two largest offenders in the top 20 were Berkshire Hathaway and Valero Energy, who both had a total score of 20. The new report now has 50% of Fortune 500 companies providing trans-inclusive health care.
The yearly report released by HRC rates companies based on five main categories including equal employment opportunities, employment benefits, organizational LGBT competency and public commitment. Offering equal employment protections based on gender identity is worth 15 points. Transgender-inclusive health care is worth 10 points in their calculation. To receive the points for healthcare, a company must provide insurance to transgender employees without exclusions, their coverage has to comply with the WPATH’s standards of care, and they must meet or exceed $75,000 worth of coverage. Companies must also provide equal benefits to all employees.
The reports also finds 382 major employers now have official guidelines for gender transition in the workplace. This is up from 330 a year ago. 96% of the rated U.S. companies in the index now provide employment protections on the basis of gender identity, with 92% of global companies offering protections. If a company has a large-scale official or public anti-LGBT blemish on their recent records, they lose 25 points from their overall score. No companies lost points under this provision this year.
You can read the full 2017 report be the Human Rights Campaign here.
