Transgender people are not protected under federal laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of handicap or disability. Although transsexualism has been recognized for many years as a medical condition, both of the federal laws making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of disability, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) explicitly exclude both transsexualism and gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments from protection. Although most states and the District of Columbia have state laws that prohibit employment discrimination against people with disabilities, like federal law, several of these state laws expressly exclude transgender people, including Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia. Courts in some states where the state law does not specifically exclude transgender people, including Pennsylvania and Iowa, still have held that being transgender is not a protected disability. More recently, however, some state courts and state administrative agencies have indicated a willingness to depart from older precedents and to interpret state and local disability discrimination laws to include transgender people. These states include Massachusetts, New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, and Oregon. If you have been discriminated against because of your gender identity and/or gender expression, you may wish to consult with a local attorney to determine whether you can and/or should bring a claim for disability discrimination under federal or state law.