Court Rules That Anti-Trans Discrimination Is Sex Discrimination

In August, I blogged about Diane Schroer, a highly qualified special forces veteran who was offered a position at the Library of Congress as a terrorism research analyst. The Library withdrew the job offer when Schroer informed them that she was in the process of changing sex.

Today, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in Schroer’s favor. (Curtsy to Questioning Transphobia and The Debate Link.)

Congratulations to Diane Schroer and to the ACLU for winning this case. I’m especially excited because the judge endorses a legal theory that mirrors my own belief that transphobia is just another form of sexism. Judge Robertson ruled that the existing Title VII law covers cases of anti-trans discrimination. Because discrimination against trans people is a form of sex discrimination.

From Judge Robertson’s ruling (pdf link):

Imagine that an employee is fired because she converts from Christianity to Judaism. Imagine too that her employer testifies that he harbors no bias toward either Christians or Jews but only “converts.” That would be a clear case of discrimination “because of religion.” No court would take seriously the notion that “converts” are not covered by the statute. Discrimination “because of religion” easily encompasses discrimination because of a change of religion. But in cases where the plaintiff has changed her sex, and faces discrimination because of the decision to stop presenting as a man and to start appearing as a woman, courts have traditionally carved such persons out of the statute by concluding that “transsexuality” is unprotected by Title VII. In other words, courts have allowed their focus on the label “transsexual” to blind them to the statutory language itself.

The decisions holding that Title VII only prohibits discrimination against men because they are men, and discrimination against women because they are women, represent an elevation of “judge-supposed legislative intent over clear statutory text.” […] As Justice Scalia wrote for a unanimous court:

Male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace was assuredly not the principal evil Congress was concerned with when it enacted Title VII. But statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed.

For Diane Schroer to prevail on the facts of her case, however, it is not necessary to draw sweeping conclusions about the reach of Title VII. Even if the decisions that define the word “sex” in Title VII as referring only to anatomical or chromosomal sex are still good law […] the Library’s refusal to hire Schroer after being advised that she planned to change her anatomical sex by undergoing sex reassignment surgery was literally discrimination “because of . . . sex.” […]

In refusing to hire Diane Schroer because her appearance and background did not comport with the decisionmaker’s sex stereotypes about how men and women should act and appear . . . the Library of Congress violated Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination.

This is the sort of thing that makes me pump my arm in the air and yell “YES!” I’m hoping very hard this ruling stands up on appeal.

In unrelated, but also good, legal news, the Judge in the Angie Zampata murder case declined to lessen the charges from first to second degree murder based on a “trans panic” defense. Curtsy: Gaytheist Agenda.