Discrimination occurs when someone treats similarly situated people differently based on certain characteristics, often referred to as protected classes. Discrimination means treating people differently because of a protected category.Discrimination means, at a very basic level, the act of separating out singular things or groups of things. It can be both an adjective and a verb. Discrimination is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people and groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, age, or sexual orientation. In 1988, the Fair Housing Act was amended to include people with disabilities as a protected class against whom discrimination is prohibited. Sex or gender discrimination is treating individuals differently in their employment specifically because an individual is a woman or a man. Ancestry discrimination or ancestry harassment occurs when workers are treated less favorably because of the country that their ancestors came from. Sex or gender discrimination is treating individuals differently in their employment specifically because an individual is a woman or a man. Lack of a key could result in the loss of life or property in the case of an emergency.