NLPC: Johnson & Johnson Cares More About Trans Agenda than Health Care

This morning, National Legal and Policy Center presented a “Gender-Based Compensation Gaps and Associated Risks” proposal at Johnson & Johnson‘s annual shareholder meeting (Chairman/CEO Joaquin Duato pictured above), which would require the company to investigate its employee pay and benefits policies to determine how and where they are discriminatory — primarily against de-transitioners, who are individuals that attempt to switch from the sex they were born with, and then desire to return to their original bodily conditions. Most who have undergone chemical, medical or surgical treatments to alter their bodies, cannot then find care or insurance coverage to try to switch back.

The company’s board of directors opposed our proposal, as explained on page 126 of the company’s proxy statement. NLPC’s response to the board’s opposition statement was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month.

Speaking as sponsor of the proposal was Paul Chesser, director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. His two-minute remarks can be heard here, and a transcript follows:

Good morning.

 

As our proposal, Proposal 4, points out, Johnson and Johnson is very proud of its 100-percent score on the Human Rights Campaign’s LGBTQ scorecard, which says a company promotes full equality if it provides sex change operations for employees and dependents in its insurance plans.

 

The Company acts as if an employee, or perhaps his or her teen dependent, gets a double mastectomy or some form of genital removal, that they will never regret it, and that they will be happy the rest of their lives.

 

Unfortunately, in the real world, instead of the fantasy world inhabited by Human Rights Campaign and Johnson and Johnson, that is often not the case.

 

In fact, many sufferers are extremely upset that they were lied to about being able to switch from their birth genders.

 

Only after it’s too late do they learn that even if they wanted to detransition, they can’t.

 

There is no restoration to their original bodily condition, either medically, or through insurance.

 

I thought Johnson and Johnson was a health and medical company?

 

Isn’t the principle supposed to be first, do no harm?

 

Does Johnson and Johnson even research how it can help detransitioners, or is the Company too beholden to the Human Rights Campaign’s agenda?

 

The answer is obvious.

 

In its response to our Proposal, the Board says we failed to identify a gap in its pay and benefits offerings.

 

On the contrary; We most certainly did.

 

Detransitioners testify that it is impossible to find doctors to treat them, or insurers to insure them.

 

Under EEOC guidelines, based on gender identity and sexual orientation, this is discriminatory, and Johnson and Johnson is guilty of it.

 

The Company is whistling past the graveyard if it thinks it will avoid lawsuits based on this inequitable policy.

 

Obviously Johnson and Johnson has learned nothing from the talcum powder class action lawsuits.

 

Please vote FOR Proposal Number 4.

Read NLPC’s shareholder proposal for the Johnson & Johnson annual meeting here.

Listen to Paul Chesser’s presentation of the proposal at the meeting here.

Read NLPC’s response, filed with the SEC, to the company’s opposition to our shareholder proposal, here.

NLPC sponsored a nearly identical proposal which was presented earlier this month at The Walt Disney Company, and produced a one-minute video to preview the meeting presentation, which you can watch below: