Gender Identity or Expression

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As regular readers of our blog will already know, the issue of whether Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on an employee’s sexual orientation or gender identity has been a hot topic in federal litigation for several years. Our blog has regularly covered these developments and often expressed that this question will likely require clarification…

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Yesterday, the newly confirmed Education Secretary and Attorney General issued a joint letter eliminating the Obama administration’s guidance from last year addressing the issue of bathroom use by transgendered students.  Specifically, the former guidance had said that schools must allow students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify, even if that…

Query: a longtime employee, who has previously identified in your workplace as female, begins dressing for work like a man, grooming according to male standards, and identifying as male.  He begins to make arrangements to have his name formally changed, and a number of other legal documents changed as well.  He also begins using the…

Title VIIAs my colleague Christina Stoneburner posted yesterday and today, North Carolina recently enacted the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, which, among other similar state laws that continue cropping up (such as the recently vetoed religious exemption bill in Georgia), curtails protections based on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and/or Transgender (LGBT) status.  These proposed…

45810489_sThings seem to be developing rapidly in North Carolina.  Just yesterday morning we reported that the ACLU had filed a challenge to the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act that was passed last week and signed by Governor McCrory.   The response from the North Carolina’s Attorney General’s Office was immediate and decisive:  the AG would…

Just days after North Carolina lawmakers passed the controversial Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act (“Act”), the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) has filed a lawsuit challenging the law.

6276693_sAlthough the title of the Act seems to imply that it just addresses the use of public restrooms, the law actually goes far beyond that.  Opponents…

TransMayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council have made no secret of their desire to expand the reach and protections offered by the New York City Human Rights Law (“NYCHRL”).  This year saw the expansion of these protections, such as bans on using, or even inquiring about, individuals’ credit and criminal background…

4629528_sThe Illinois Human Rights Commission recently ruled against Hobby Lobby and found that it had discriminated against a transgendered employee by refusing to let her use the women’s restroom unless she could provide legal authority mandating that she be allowed to use that bathroom or produce medical documentation that she had surgically completed her transition…

A newly filed EEOC charge alleges that The Holy Family Catholic Community in Inverness, Ill fired its 17-year music director when the director announced on Facebook that he had just become an engaged to his male partner.  This, according to the Portland Press Herald.

See: http://www.pressherald.com/2014/12/06/music-director-fired-by-church-files-claim-for-discrimination/

gay weddings : Closeup of a gay couple holding hands, wearing a wedding ring. Couple is a hispanic man and a caucasian man.

The director, who alleges sex, sexual orientation…

Since everyone knows that the country of Malta (“Where’s that, Jake?”) is in the vanguard on human rights, and is more enlightened and progressive than, say, an old-fashioned, traditional country such as the US, which usually lags behind, it should therefore come as no surprise that Malta just outlawed discrimination against transgender individuals, on grounds…