Workers cant be fired for being gay

By Ted Johnson. The Supreme Court delivered a momentous ruling in favor of LGBT rights on Monday, deciding that gay, lesbian and transgender workers are protected by federal anti-discrimination law. The decision means that LGBT employees cannot be fired for their sexual orientation, a possibility that still exists in many states even in the five years since same-sex marriage was ruled legal.

The justices decided that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act ofwhich prohibits discrimination on the basis on sex, also applies to sexual orientation. The case involved two plaintiffs who were fired by their employers after revealing that they were gay, and a transgender individual who was terminated from her job after revealing her gender identity to her boss.

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex.

Supreme Court Says Firing Workers Because They Are LGBTQ Is Unlawful Discrimination

Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Watch on Deadline. Gerald Bostock, one of the plaintiffs in the case, sued after he was fired from his job with Clayton County, GA, after he joined a gay softball league.

Another plaintiff, Donald Zarda, was terminated from his job as a skydiving instructor in New York after he revealed his sexual orientation. He died inbut his family continued to pursue the case. Another plaintiff, Aimee Stephens, was let go from her job at a Michigan funeral home after she told her employer that she planned to live and work as a woman.

She died last month of kidney failure. It belongs to our clients Aimee, Don, and another plaintiff Gerald Bostock, and countless other individuals who spoke out when they experienced discrimination. But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed.

The question is whether Congress did that in It indisputably did not. And in this — this time of uncertainty and certainly some dark days with the civil unrest going on around us, my hope is that this — this brings a little bit of sunshine to these dark days, because what it tells me is there is hope.

Especially at a time when the Trump Administration is rolling back the rights of transgender people and anti-transgender violence continues to plague our nation, this decision is a step towards affirming the dignity of transgender people, and all LGBTQ people. Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.

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