The Department of Justice on Wednesday filed a brief in a case concerning Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman who was fired from a Detroit funeral home after she informed her employer that she was beginning her gender transition. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Stephens and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in March of this year, ruling that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects transgender workers and that an employer’s religious beliefs cannot be used to justify discrimination. Aimee Stephens, right, and her wife Donna. Courtesy ACLU The funeral home appealed the decision, and now the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom is urging the Supreme Court to consider the case. THE MEANING OF “SEX” The DOJ’s brief, while not asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, sides with the funeral home on the definition of “sex” in the context of Title VII, which “prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.” “When Title VII was enacted in 1964, ‘sex’ meant biological sex; it “refer[red] to [the] physiological distinction[]’ between ‘male and female,’” the brief stated. “Title VII thus does not apply to discrimination against an […]
