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Youngstown Passes Housing and Employment Protections for People in the LGBT Community

Cleveland will have a gay pride festival after all following cancelation of the city's annual event.
Quinn Dombrowski
Cleveland will have a gay pride festival after all following cancelation of the city's annual event.

Youngstown has a new law to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The nonprofit group Equality Ohio helped the city create the laws.

Grant Stancliff is the communications director at Equality Ohio and says that Youngstown now has the gold standard of LGBT protection.

“I’m heartened to see that cities in Ohio are taking the step to say, as a community ‘we’re welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ people.’ Right now in most parts of Ohio, and we’re talking about 80% of Ohio, it’s legal generally to fire somebody or kick somebody out of their apartment just because they’re LGBTQ.”

Youngstown  is now the 16th city in Ohio to protect its LGBT citizens from discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and credit access.

Copyright 2021 WKSU. To see more, visit WKSU.

Mitch Felan is a news intern for WKSU. He is a multimedia journalist with experience in print, television, radio and visual journalism. Felan is a junior at Kent State University, working towards a Bachelor's Degree in Multimedia Journalism. During the school year, Felan works for Kent State Student Media in TV2, The Kent Stater, and KentWired. He will be serving as the Digital Director for Kent State University's Student Media Newsroom in the Fall.