When the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, Jesse Helms insisted on tacking on an amendment which excluded application of the ADA to transgender people.

Kate Lynn Blatt of Pottsville, PA sued Cabella, Inc. in 2014 for sex discrimination in her dismissal after she suffered much harassment, including being forced to wear a name tag with the name she was assigned at birth.

US District Judge Joseph Leeson of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled on Thursday that Blatt's case could move forward "in part because the law [ADA] should be broadly construed to give people with disabilities recourse to pursue discrimination claims."

Leeson did not rule on the constitutionality of the ADA.

Being transgender is not considered a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, but it can give rise to gender dysphoria, a type of anxiety that may require medical treatment. Gender dysphoria forms Blatt's basis for making a claim under the ADA.

The lawsuit, which also cites protections in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against sex discrimination in employment, had asked the judge to rule that the ADA clause violates the U.S. Constitution because it denies equal protection for all under the law.

I would have preferred that the judge had ruled on the constitutinal question, but this is still a vistory becaue of similar cases that other plaintiffs filed after Blatt.

Other courts will look to this decision. I'm hopeful we will be able to expand civil rights for transgender people just a little.

--Neelima Vanguri, Blatt's attorney

I was told that to really affect change and the law, this would have to go to federal court and I went forward with changing the law in federal court. It wasn’t about the money. I really wanted this in federal court and I really wanted to affect change. It took 10 years for it to go through and I thank God that it did. I’m glad the case starts moving forward again and hopefully it gets to the next stage.

--Blatt

Cabela's claimed that the Helms Amendment "flatly bars" claims of workplace discrimination by transgender people. Judge Leeson ruled that the amendment does not apply to employees who have been diagnosed as having a medical condition that limits their ability to live normal lives.

While not all transgender people experience clinically significant disorders, the fact that many do should not be ignored.

--GLAD

Leeson distinguished the non-disabling condition of merely identifying with a different gender from gender dysphoria, which goes beyond merely identifying with a different gender and is characterized by clinically significant stress and other impairments that may be disabling.

--Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal

Plaintiff's diagnosis with “gender dysphoria substantially limits her major life activities of interacting with others, reproducing, and occupational functioning. Because this interpretation allows the court to avoid the constitutional questions raised in this case, it is the court’s duty to adopt it.

--Gleeson

Many of the transgender people I have known over the past quarter century would be very angry at being labeled "disabled." Indeed some conservative sources are already interpreting Judge Leeson's ruling as disctating that transgender people have a mental disorder, totally dismissing Leeson's use of the phrase "medical condition."