 Jordan Blum of the "Houston Chronicle" stated in 2016 that levels of LGBT acceptance and discrimination vary throughout the Houston energy industry.Around the 1990s BP, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and several other companies offered benefits and protection to LGBT employees equal to that of straight employees.According to Blum many LGBT-identifying persons told him that several companies have cultures non-supportive of LGBT-identifying persons and that some had "described thinly veiled or blatant discrimination."