Chris Geidner, BuzzFeed
September 25, 2014
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed lawsuits Thursday against two companies accused of discriminating against transgender employees, the first time the federal government has brought suit under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect transgender workers.
The two complaints, filed in federal courts in Florida and Michigan, are the latest — and most ambitious — steps in a series of aggressive moves taken by the commission in the past several years to advance LGBT rights under existing laws.
"This enforcement priority aims to give full force to Title VII's prohibition against sex discrimination to ensure it helps eliminate unlawful discriminatory barriers to LGBT applicants and employees," EEOC General Counsel David Lopez said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. "It seeks to ensure employers aren't considering irrelevant factors, like gender-based stereotypes or gender identity, in making employment decisions."
Thursday's actions and much of the work that preceded it followed from an April 2012 decision of the commission — a five-member board that controls the decisions of the independent agency — holding that discrimination against transgender people is "sex discrimination" within the meaning of the phrase in Title VII's employment discrimination ban.
More:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/federal-government-sues-companies-over-anti-transgender-disc?utm_term=ybhdfy#3ucs5d8
