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US Supreme Court rules gay and lesbian people can sue for workplace bias

Hindustan Times, Delhi | Byhindustantimes.com | Edited by Saumya Sharma
Jun 15, 2020 08:47 PM IST

The US Supreme Court rules gay and lesbian people can sue for workplace bias under landmark civil rights law.

The US Supreme Court rules gay and lesbian people can sue for workplace bias under landmark civil rights law.

The ruling comes as a major win for LGBTQ workers and their allies, many of whom have experienced discrimination at work or even been fired for being LGBT+, the ruling represents a watershed moment in gay rights. (Representational Image)(Unsplash)
The ruling comes as a major win for LGBTQ workers and their allies, many of whom have experienced discrimination at work or even been fired for being LGBT+, the ruling represents a watershed moment in gay rights. (Representational Image)(Unsplash)

In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying that federal law prohibited discrimination based on sex as well as race, colour, national origin and religion, also applies to gay and trans people.

The ruling comes as a major win for LGBTQ workers and their allies, many of whom have experienced discrimination at work or even been fired for being LGBT+, the ruling represents a watershed moment in gay rights.

“No trans people and no lesbian or gay people can ever be fired or discriminated against for being gay or transgender - that’s the immutable law of the land now,” said Vandy Beth Glenn, a trans woman fired in 2007 when she came out as trans.

In his majority opinion, conservative justice Neil Gorsuch wrote: “Ours is a society of written laws ... An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”

LGBT+ advocacy groups welcomed the decision as an important step in protecting gay and trans workers, more than half of whom live in states without explicit workplace protections, leaving them vulnerable to harassment or firing without legal recourse.

“This is a landmark victory for LGBTQ equality,” Alphonso David, president of LGBT advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign, said on Twitter.

“We cannot & should not go back to a time when people felt they had to hide who they are in order to feel safe at work.”

The court’s ruling comes days after the administration of President Donald Trump announced a rollback of guidance implemented during the administration of President Barack Obama which protected trans people from discrimination in healthcare. Trans rights advocate Carter Brown said if the Supreme Court ruled in favour of workplace protections, it would still require a cultural shift before trans people truly felt safe at work.

The outcome is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states don’t protect them from workplace discrimination.

The Trump administration had changed course from the Obama administration, which supported LGBT workers in their discrimination claims under Title VII.

During the Obama years, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had changed its longstanding interpretation of civil rights law to include discrimination against LGBT people. The law prohibits discrimination because of sex, but has no specific protection for sexual orientation or gender identity.

In recent years, some lower courts have held that discrimination against LGBT people is a subset of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited by the federal law.

Efforts by Congress to change the law have so far failed.

The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment discrimination after they lost their jobs.

As per a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine by researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut, “Sexual and gender minority (SGM) adolescents are at heightened risk of suicide, depression, sleep troubles, and eating disorders. These health consequences often stem from the distress of being stigmatized for their sexual and gender identities. Based on this knowledge, researchers wanted to learn whether being mistreated for other reasons (such as their weight, race/ethnicity, religion, disability status) also contributes to their health.”

The study also reports findings from the LGBTQ National Teen Survey, a comprehensive survey conducted in partnership with the Human Rights Campaign to assess victimization, health behaviours, family relationships, and experiences of LGBTQ adolescents across the United States. Researchers asked participants ages 13-17 questions about school-based GSAs, their experiences of bias-based bullying, and health risk indicators, including stress, sleep problems, depression, and unhealthy weight behaviours.

-- with inputs from Associated Press, Thomson Reuters Foundation and ANI

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