Nine months after the United States Supreme Court’s historic decision in Bostock , the Texas Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had to decide whether the interpretation of Title VII’s language in protecting LGBTQ employees also applied to the state’s anti-discrimination statute, the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (TCHRA) in Tarrant County College Dist. v. Sims . As detailed in this Baker Donelson Alert , on June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court expanded the longstanding scope of that protection in a 6-3 historic decision that sexual orientation and gender identity are also protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, and creed, but sexual orientation and gender identity are not explicitly mentioned in Title VII’s statutory language as are these other protected classifications. Proponents argued that such classes should be included because Title VII prohibits discrimination "because of sex," and the Court agreed. Specifically, the Court held that "an employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the […]
