The Trump Justice Department is siding with a Christian-owned funeral home against a fired transgender employee in a major Supreme Court case that will determine whether federal law bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The high court will hear oral arguments Oct. 8 to decide if Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – which bars discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin – also bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Lower courts have split on the issue. The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals – which heard the funeral home case – ruled that the definition of “sex” within the Civil Rights Act encompasses sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Trump Justice Department, in a new brief, sides with R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, a Michigan business which dismissed a biological male employee who came out as a transgender female and began dressing like a woman. The ex-employee is Aimee Stephens, formerly known as Anthony Stephens.
The funeral home’s owner is a Christian who has a sex-specific dress code requiring “male employees to wear suits and ties and female employees to wear skirts and business jackets,” the brief notes.
The question of whether transgender employees should be protected within the Civil Rights Act, the Justice…
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