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Seattle has expanded its civil-rights protections to explicitly recognise pansexuality, asexuality and consensually non-monogamous relationships, in a change to the city’s anti-discrimination laws.
Ordinance 127507 was passed by Seattle City Council on 15 September, signed by the mayor on 18 September and formally attested by the City Clerk on 21 September. The legislation updates Seattle’s legal definition of sexual orientation and applies that revised definition across several areas of municipal anti-discrimination law.
And while the wording may sound rather legalistic, what Seattle has done is actually pretty easy to understand.
The city has decided its protections need to reflect more of the ways people actually identify, love and build relationships.
Seattle LGBTQ+ protections now explicitly include pansexuality and asexuality
Seattle’s previous definition of sexual orientation referred to heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality.
The new language explicitly adds pansexuality and asexuality.
It also removes wording that framed attraction specifically around “male or female”, reflecting the existence of gender identities outside a binary framework.
That’s important because being legally protected under a broad umbrella and being explicitly named in the law are not always the same thing.
Visibility in legislation can make it clearer to residents, businesses and institutions what forms of discrimination are actually prohibited.
And then there’s non-monogamy
This is perhaps the part of the legislation most likely to attract attention.
Seattle has also expanded the definition to cover a person’s attitudes, preferences and practices around sexual orientation, explicitly including consensual relationships involving multiple partners, such as non-monogamous relationships.
That does not mean Seattle has declared non-monogamy itself to be a new sexual orientation.
Instead, consensual multi-partner relationships are now incorporated into the city’s existing sexual-orientation protections for anti-discrimination purposes.
And yes, the word consensual is doing a lot of important work there.
What does the law actually protect?
Seattle already has city anti-discrimination rules covering areas including employment, housing, public accommodations, policing, parks, business licences and city employment policies.
The new ordinance inserts the expanded definition of sexual orientation across those sections of Seattle’s Municipal Code.
So this isn’t simply about changing terminology on a government website.
The definitions determine who is covered when Seattle’s anti-discrimination protections are applied.
The ordinance also acknowledges a range of family and relationship structures including multi-partner families, single parents, co-parents, multigenerational households and chosen families.
Why explicit recognition still matters
LGBTQ+ language has changed enormously over the past few decades.
But laws often move rather more slowly.
Pansexual and asexual people can still find themselves explaining that their identities are real before they can even begin talking about discrimination. People in consensually non-monogamous relationships can face assumptions about their morality, stability or family lives.
Seattle’s response is essentially to make the definition broader and more explicit.
Not every identity or relationship fits neatly into an old legal box.
Sometimes the box needs changing.
And in Seattle, it just did.
