Zillow Now Includes City’s LGBTQ Nondiscrimination Protections on Home Listings

The real estate listing site Zillow will now show details regarding local LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections on all listings.

All home listings will now show information regarding housing, employment, and public accommodations, broken down into both sexual orientation protections and gender identity protections.

Image courtesy of Zillow

“It’s 2020, and yet, unfortunately, in many parts of the United States, LGBTQ home shoppers still face housing discrimination,” said Dawn Lyon, the chief corporate relations officer at Zillow. “That’s why we strongly support federal-level protections as part of the Equality Act. In lieu of federal law and in the spirit of ‘turning on the lights,’ we want to give people the most information possible when buying, renting, and financing a home, including which communities provide equal protection under the law for all.”

This change could impact the livelihoods of many LGBTQ homebuyers; according to the Zillow Consumer Housing Trends Report, only 28 percent of LGBTQ buyers and 29 percent of LGBTQ renters completely agreed with the statement: “I feel accepted for who I am by those around me where I live.”  This number is compared to 51 percent of cisgender straight buyers and 40 percent cisgender straight renters.

The move to add LGBTQ legal protections into listings comes from a grassroot effort made by members of the Zillow LGBTQ Pride affinity network, and there are already efforts to take it further by including more housing information relevant to other marginalized communities.

“This definitely won’t end here,” said Doug Pope, the vice president of rentals product teams at Zillow. “There are other communities discriminated against in the US, and our hope is that we can expand our efforts to shine a light on the presence—or absence—of fair housing laws that impact those communities.”