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HISTORIC: EEOC ruling protects trans workers from discrimination


By Chris Johnson on April 24, 2012


http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/04/24/historic-eeoc-ruling-protects-trans-workers-from-discrimination/


In a historic ruling, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has determined that job bias against transgender employees on the basis of gender identity amounts to sex discrimination under existing law.

The determination came about as part of the resolution of a case filed by the Transgender Law Center on behalf of Mia Macy, a transgender woman who allegedly was denied a job as a ballistics technician at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives's laboratory in Walnut Creek, Calif., after she announced she was transitioning from male to female. The decision, made unanimously by the commission on a 5-0 vote, was made public Monday evening.

"[W]e conclude that intentional discrimination against a transgender individual because the person is transgender is, by definition, discrimination 'based on ... sex,' and such discrimination therefore violates Title VII," the decision states.

Good 

A Woman's Fight, a Couple's Resilience

By Chris Geidner
Published on April 23, 2012, 10:36pm

http://metroweekly.com/news/?ak=7287

Mia Macy is a veteran and police officer, married to the woman she met in her teens, who wanted to take a job as a ballistics technician for the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

''I was in the military and then I became a cop. One of the last jobs I had with the Phoenix Police Department, I worked on an ATF [team], and it's a gun squad, and I was certified by the ATF. They came in and they certified us for these pieces of equipment, and I worked on the gun cases,'' she tells Metro Weekly. ''I got a job offer to come out to San Francisco ... and work for the ATF in their lab, and went through the process and went through the background and completed that.''

Over the course of the process, Macy, who had worked for the Phoenix P.D. as a man, had begun transitioning, and showed up for the background check as Mia.

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Transgender Breakthrough
EEOC ruling that gender-identity discrimination is covered by Title VII is a ''sea change'' that opens the doors to employment protection for transgender Americans

By Chris Geidner
Published on April 23, 2012, 10:38pm

http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=7288

An employer who discriminates against an employee or applicant on the basis of the person's gender identity is violating the prohibition on sex discrimination contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to an opinion issued on April 20 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The opinion, experts say, could dramatically alter the legal landscape for transgender workers across the nation.

The opinion came in a decision delivered on Monday, April 23, to lawyers for Mia Macy, a transgender woman who claims she was denied employment with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after the agency learned of her transition. It also comes on the heels of a growing number of federal appellate and trial courts deciding that gender-identity discrimination constitutes sex discrimination, whether based on Title VII or the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

The EEOC decision, issued without objection by the five-member, bipartisan commission, will apply to all EEOC enforcement and litigation activities at the commission and in its 53 field offices throughout the country. It also will be binding on all federal agencies and departments.

I cried tears of joy when I heard this news for the first time earlier today!

I am so glad to see this huge step of progress!  I'm still hoping that we get full employment non-discrimination in the US (it's still legal to fire gay people for being gay in > 50% of the states), and family law for families with T spouses still sucks, but this is huge!  I'm hoping it can be leveraged to get full parity without discrimination in employer-funded health care.  The Transgender Law Center did awesome work getting the EEOC to make a common-sense decision.

EEOC Decision in Trans Woman's Case "Will Almost Certainly Impact" Federal Contractor Rules, Scholars Say


Posted by Chris Geidner | May 4, 2012 1:25 AM


http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/05/eeoc-decision-in-trans-womans.html


The April 20 decision by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the federal law banning sex discrimination in the workplace includes discrimination based on gender identity is likely to have several effects outside the decision itself and the EEOC, but one of the more clear implications, a trio of legal scholars says, is that "the decision will almost certainly impact the enforcement of Executive Order 11246" -- the existing federal contractor nondiscrimination executive order.