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07/03/2019

Bostock v. Clayton County (Amicus)

The Legal Aid Society filed an amicus brief to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects against employment discrimination on the basis of transgender status or sexual orientation. In Bostock and two companion cases, workers were fired from their jobs solely because they were members of the LGBTQ+ community. In our brief, we described the experiences of Legal Aid’s LGBTQ+ clients and the inevitable link between sex stereotyping and the workplace discrimination that they faced. In 2020, in a profound victory for LGBTQ+ rights, the Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act protects anyone who works at or applies for a job with an employer that has at least 15 employees from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. As the Court put it: “[a]n employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII.”