Trump Regime Continues Attack on Transgender People

[Content Note: Trans hatred.]

The Justice Department has petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the question of workplace transgender bias, arguing that employers are allowed under federal law to discriminate against employees based on their gender identity.

Their argument is based on asserting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was wrong in concluding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which prohibits worker discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion — includes discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Chris Opfer at Bloomberg Law reports:

Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the high court that a civil rights law banning sex discrimination on the job doesn't cover transgender bias. That approach already has created a rift within the Trump administration, contradicting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's view of the law it's tasked with enforcing.

A Michigan funeral home wants the high court to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decision finding that the company violated federal workplace discrimination law when it fired Aimee Stephens, a transgender worker. The EEOC successfully sued on behalf of Stephens in that case, but the Justice Department has the sole authority to represent the government before the Supreme Court. The DOJ told the high court that the Sixth Circuit got the case wrong.

"The court of appeals misread the statute and this Court's decisions in concluding that Title VII encompasses discrimination on the basis of gender identity," Francisco said in a brief filed with the court.

The crux of the case is that Harris Funeral Homes fired Stephens after she told the business owner that she was transitioning. Harris Funeral Homes essentially argued that it fired Stephens for being transgender, not for being a woman. (Oh.)

In the Sixth Circuit's ruling, which decided that Harris Funeral Homes' position was horseshit, Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote: "It is analytically impossible to fire an employee based on that employee's status as a transgender person without being motivated, at least in part, by the employee's sex." Which is, of course, exactly right.

But the Trump administration is incredibly asserting that misogyny has nothing to do with discrimination against a transgender woman, and thus a transgender woman is not entitled to workplace protections conferred by Title VII.

Worryingly: "The Supreme Court is expected to decide in the coming months whether to take up the case. It's also been asked [by the Justice Department] to consider two other cases testing whether sexual orientation bias is a form of sex discrimination banned under the existing law."

In related news, Julian Borger at the Guardian reports that the United States "is seeking to eliminate the word 'gender' from UN human rights documents, most often replacing it with 'woman,' apparently as part of the Trump administration's campaign to define transgender people out of existence. ...For example, in a draft paper on trafficking in women and girls introduced by Germany and Philippines earlier this month, the U.S. wants to remove phrases like 'gender-based violence' would be replaced by violence against women.'"

This is rage-making for its rank eliminationist intent toward transgender people, and it is rage-making that the Trump administration is engaging this eliminationist strategy under the auspices of concern about decentering (cis) women and girls.

The Trump administration doesn't give a single fuck about preventing violence against (cis) women and girls, and I am outraged that they would pretend that they do in order to harm trans people.