Tuesday 1 October 2019

Trans Employees and Supreme Courts



Todays top Google news Trans story is from The Guardian: 'There is no protection': case of trans woman fired after coming out could make history.

It looks at the case of Aimee Stephens. Aimee is a trans woman that was fired from her job because her employer objected to a man dressing as a woman. There are court documents that testify to this here.

According to the Guardian report:

Stephens’ case is one of three discrimination cases involving LGBTQ individuals that the court [Supreme Court of the United States] will hear on 8 October and the first supreme court case involving the civil rights of transgender people.

Some parts of the court documents mentioned above make for heavy reading. But there's a lot that is just telling of Aimee's experiences.

I'd heard of Aimee Stephens back in March 2018 when I'd been engaging a little with people at Walid Shoebat's web site here. There's an article about an earlier court case involving Aimee Stephens that I made some comments on. In my opinion the article misrepresents the truth of the case.

There are issues in all of this as to what authority an employer has in terms of hiring and firing people. Some people think that an employer (especially in a privately owned business) should be free to do whatever they want.

Personally, at least, I'm glad that employers aren't free to do whatever they want, and that there are restrictions placed upon them.

I think that there ought to be protection for people in their employment and that trans people should be treated first and foremost as people.

It's a shame that the employer in this case doesn't seem to have been able to find it in his heart to do this.

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