On October 8th, the Supreme Court will hear a trio of major cases that could determine the future of LGBTQ+ employment rights. Two of the cases, Altitude Express Inc. v Zarda and Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, center on men who say they were fired from their jobs for being gay, with a third case, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC & Aimee Stephens, focusing on a transgender woman who was fired after informing her boss that she was transitioning. Together, they represent the next step in the movement for LGBTQ+ equality. As of today, less than half of U.S. states have laws that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Without any federal protections, LGBTQ+ people in most of the country can legally be fired or kicked out of a movie theater just for being who they are. And those states don’t appear likely to add protections anytime soon; over the past 10 years, only one state (Utah) has passed a law banning anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.
The outcome of the October 8th cases could change all of that. If the Supreme Court votes in favor of the employees, it would bring forth nationwide employment protections for LGBTQ+ people for the first time in U.S. history. And because they’re so momentous, they’re something that every queer and trans person in the country should pay attention to. Here’s everything you need to know.
What is Title VII?
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that makes it illegal to discriminate against people based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The legislation was originally proposed by former President John F. Kennedy as a solution to racial segregation, and after Kennedy’s assassination, it was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in a room full of civil rights activists like Martin Luther King, Jr. Ironically, the portion of the law that bans sex discrimination — which LGBTQ advocates say should be interpreted to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity — was added just two days before its vote in Congress by a Southern segregationist who opposed equal rights for Black Americans. Rep. Howard Smith of Virginia, along with Rep. Martha Griffiths of Michigan, argued that the law would protect Black women while leaving white women subject to continued discrimination.
Broken up into ten sections, or “titles,” the Civil Rights Act details ways that Americans should be protected from bias based on the categories of identity listed above, including Title VII, which bans employment discrimination. This ban is enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which investigates and sometimes fines or files lawsuits to intervene in discrimination cases. The cases that are coming to the Supreme Court October 8th all ask the same question: does Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination in employment extend to sexual orientation and gender identity?