Someone can also reveal their marital status, or possibly sexuality (A male employee tells you he needs it more because his husband's mother is sick, etc.)

Our environment is very diverse and non-discriminatory (though there can always be improvements of course). Several people in our fairly small company are openly gay. It's not exactly your usual work environment! People who aren't naturally open about such things probably wouldn't be hired and wouldn't want to work there anyway. And no, the "discrimination" in this case would not have anything to do with their "secret", it would have to do with their general attitude and culture fit.

> Several people in our fairly small company are openly gay. It's not exactly your usual work environment! People who aren't naturally open about such things probably wouldn't be hired

Please correct my reading of your comment, but it sounds like you're saying that "people who aren't naturally open about such things [like being gay] probably wouldn't be hired" because that sounds like the very definition of discrimination.

Of course we discriminate - as does anyone who runs any company with any sort of cohesive culture.

Don't misunderstand: the "being gay" part is completely irrelevant. What we discriminate on is the culture fit, in particular values. And we discriminate a LOT on that basis. If anyone throughout the interview process doesn't think the candidate is a culture fit, they are personally responsible for voicing that and ensuring the candidate is not hired.

One of our core values is transparency. We don't hire people who aren't open.

Eek. You're saying you won't hire someone who doesn't, at an interview, openly disclose their sexuality or trans status? Maybe run this sort of thing by a lawyer....

No, I'm saying we won't hire someone who's very secretive about everything during the interview. Their gender and orientation has nothing to do with it.