Crime & Justice

Supreme Court rules against discrimination vs. transsexuals in workplace

Washington, Jun 15 (efe-epa).- The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that transsexuals, like any other citizens, have the right not to be discriminated against at their workplaces, a decision that is the high court’s most important move in favor of the LGTBIQ community since the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015.

The victory, in addition, is significant because the majority of the justices on the high court were named by Republican presidents and usually are socially more conservative in rendering their decisions.

In this case, six of the nine justices sided in favor of the LGTBIQ community and Justice Neil Gorsuch, named to the court by President Donald Trump in 2017, wrote the majority decision.

Specifically, the Supreme Court ruled that lesbians, gays, transsexuals, bisexuals, intersexuals and queers (LGTBIQ) are protected from discrimination by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which already prohibited discrimination based on gender, but up until now that did not cover transsexuals.

Currently, about 20 of the 50 US states, in addition to Washington DC, have laws on the books to protect transsexuals, but up until now discrimination against that group continued – in theory – to be legal in the rest of the country.

One of the people who forced the high court’s ruling was Aimee Stephens, who died last month but in 2013 was fired from the Michigan funeral parlor where she worked after informing her superiors that she was in the process of transitioning from being a physiological male to becoming a female.

Stephens died in May at age 59 and her wife Donna was the person on Monday who, as the respondent in the case, received the decision.

The high court also issued decisions on two other cases on Monday – that of Gerald Bostock, who was fired after he joined a softball league that sympathized with LGTBIQ people, and Donald Zarda, who was forced to leave his job as a parachute instructor after he revealed that he was gay.

Since he arrived in the White House in 2017, Trump has eroded the rights of the LGTBIQ community in an attempt to maintain the support of the Christian Right element of his base.

EFE

Related Articles

Back to top button