Anti-transgender discrimination is being defended in a couple of legal actions.
A federal judge in Detroit hears arguments today in the case of transgender funeral director Aimee Stevens against Harris Funeral Homes brought by the EEOC.
I'm not normally a follower of the program American Law Journal, so I just recently stumbled across this video of their program Transgender at Work: the EEOC, Supreme Court & LGBT rights on the job. The program originally aired in November.
In a federal district court in Pennsylvania there is an ongoing challenge to the transgender exclusion in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Passed in 1990 the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of a medical or mental condition but includes the Helms Amendment, along with a portion of the original act included in hopes of enticing support from the extreme right, which some call the "moral code": the act excludes from protection "transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, and other sexual behavior disorders
Kate Lynn Blatt was hired as a seasonal stocker at Cabela’s Retail in the fall of 2006, according to allegations in the complaint. Before starting her job, she attended a two-day orientation dressed in female attire, and used the women’s employee restroom without issue. Once she started working, however, Blatt was prohibited from using the women’s restroom and was forced to wear a name tag depicting her name as “James,” even after she presented the director of human resources with documentation of her legal name change.
Blatt claims her colleagues called her “ladyboy,” “freak,” and “sinner.” Cabela’s made Blatt use the single-sex “family” restroom at the front of the store, rather than the female employee restroom closer to her work area, according to the complaint. Blatt claims she endured harassment from management and coworkers, and was abruptly terminated in March 2007.
Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District Court of Louisiana has allowed the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to intervene in Tristan Broussard's federal lawsuit against First Tower Loan, LLC.
