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The Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Tuesday in three cases that could decimate legal protections for LGBTQ workers in America.
The cases, Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, Bostock v. Clayton County, and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. EEOC, are about whether employees can legally be fired for their sexual orientation or gender identity. Harris Funeral Homes involves Aimee Stephens, who was fired from her job because, she says, her boss disapproved of the fact that she is transgender. The employees in Zarda and Bostock are gay men who say they were fired because of their sexual orientation.
“For LGBTQ workers and for LGBTQ people in general,” the court’s decision in the cases “will be a declarative and transformative statement of our legal rights under federal law,” Chase Strangio, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who will be arguing in the Harris Funeral Homes case on behalf of Stephens, told Vox. A decision against the workers could affect not just employment but housing, health care, and education as well and even contribute to the epidemic of violence against trans women of color.
Many feminist groups, including the National Women’s Law Center, have filed amicus briefs in support of Stephens and the other employees in the cases. But as Katelyn Burns reported at Vox last month, some anti-trans groups that purport to be feminist, including one called the Women’s Liberation Front, are siding with the employer in Harris Funeral Homes, arguing that giving anti-discrimination protections to trans women will harm cis women.
However, advocates for Stephens and the other employees say the opposite is true. The three cases before the court on Tuesday actually threaten the civil rights of everyone in America, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. If the court finds in favor of the employers, the advocates say, it wouldn’t just erase the protections that allow LGBTQ people to pursue careers and support their families — it would essentially destroy sex discrimination law as we know it.
