NCTE congratulates our colleagues at the Transgender Law Center, who tonight, announced a significant federal workplace rights victory. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled in a 5-0 decision that an employer who discriminates against a transgender employee or job applicant because of the person’s gender identity is illegal sex discrimination based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Though this ruling follows a growing number of court decisions around the country that have held that transgender people are protected by existing federal anti-discrimination laws, this is the first decision by the EEOC on this issue.
NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling said, “This ruling is a major advancement in transgender rights that will provide a significant tool to fight discrimination. It will also help us advocate for still needed protections like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the federal contractors executive order.”
The EEOC is the federal agency charged with interpreting and enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws, and this is the first time it has ruled that anti-transgender discrimination is sex discrimination. The decision applies to both public and private employers throughout the country including in the 34 states that do not yet have gender identity anti-discrimination laws.
The case was brought by the Transgender Law Center (TLC) on behalf of their client Mia Macy who was a denied a job as a ballistics technician at the Walnut Creek, CA laboratory of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). NCTE congratulates TLC on this important victory and thanks Mia Macy for standing up for herself and the rights of all trans people.
Keisling added, “this is a major victory. As many as 90% of trans people still face tremendous discrimination in employment according to our National Discrimination Survey, and it will help so much that the EEOC agrees with what more and more courts have been saying—discriminating against trans people because of their sex, or their perceived sex, or what an employer thinks about their sex is clearly sex discrimination, illegal and wrong.”
Read the full ruling here:
National Center for Transgender Equality's Blog 
[…] […]
[…] is a landmark decision in two ways. As the NTCE explains, this will be of huge help to people in states where the local state government has refused to pass […]
Reblogged this on transbeautiful and commented:
“Though this ruling follows a growing number of court decisions around the country that have held that transgender people are protected by existing federal anti-discrimination laws, this is the first decision by the EEOC on this issue.”
[…] The blog of the National Center for Transfgender Equality also has some great information on the EEOC ruling here. […]
Thank All Gods that Be! I am so happy that maybe others will not have to go thru what I did. 478 Resumes in 2 years with 12 interviews, 3 job offers pulled after the head hunter ” told them” that I was a Transsexual who planned to transtion in the next year, after being asked not to disclose my status.
[…] being as unique as I am, might one day not be unique. Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality said as much in her remarks following a recent mainstream television program highlighting some […]
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[…] But Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 “prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, which includes on the basis of failing to conform with gender stereotypes,” said a U.S. Department of Education spokesman to the Wilmington News Journal. In April, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled transgender people are protected… […]
[…] the groundbreaking U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruling protecting transgender people under the Title VII sex discrimination law, we now know that the EEOC […]
[…] But Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 “prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, which includes on the basis of failing to conform with gender stereotypes,” said a U.S. Department of Education spokesman to the Wilmington News Journal. In April, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled transgender people are protected… […]
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[…] we have made important advances in employment protections during the last few years (notably the EEOC ruling that transgender discrimination is sex discrimination, and President Obama protecting transgender […]
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