Exactly one month ago, I addressed what many consider to be the elephant in the room when it comes to transgender employees: bathroom use.
On Wednesday, EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum fired off a series of tweets (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) to lawyers representing employers and employees. Below (and here) is the one she sent to my side of the bar:
On my speaking boondoggles around the country, what’s the biggest issue I hear from HR professionals involving transgender employees?
Yep, it’s the use of the bathroom.
Folks, it’s not that complicated. But, I’ll get to that in a sec. First, with a tip of the hat to Joshua Block (@JoshACLU), over the weekend, I read this tweet, which links to this story from Jessica Shepherd (@JessShepSaginaw), about a Planet Fitness location in Michigan that received a complaint from a female gym member. This woman complained to the gym about a transgender woman (assigned male at birth; identifies as female) in the woman’s locker room. She then told other gym members that “a man” was using the woman’s locker room.
So Planet Fitness responded. Continue reading
I’ve got some apples reverse sex discrimination on the menu today.
How you like dem apples?
More after the jump…
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Over the weekend, I joined a Facebook thread discussing a recent federal court complaint filed in Texas by a former Saks employee, Leyth O. Jamal. Ms. Jamal claims that Saks violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against her because she is transsexual.
Saks claims (here) that the complaint lacks merit because Title VII doesn’t prohibit discrimination against transgender employees.
Writing for Slate.com, Mark Joseph Stern calls out Saks’ “trans-bashing legal strategy” as “legally untenable.” Underscoring the Supreme Court’s decision in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, Mr. Stern notes that Title VII forbids sexual stereotyping. For example, in Price Waterhouse, the company allegedly treated Ms. Hopkins differently because she was “macho,” was “tough talking” and used “foul language.” That is, she didn’t conform to the company’s expectations of how a woman should act in the workplace.
Little known fact: Pythagoras invented the Pythagorean theorem around 500 BC, which he nearly dubbed the Chicken Pot Pie theorem, because he loved CPPs so much. That same year, Pythagoras’s brother, Sarogahtyp, discovered that, when one man tweaks another man’s nipple, it’s not sex discrimination. But, it will get you a black eye — especially when the recipient is your brother and he’s finalizing his legendary theorem when finishing off a flaky CPP.
Thousands of years later, it still holds true that when a man delivers a purple nurple — some of you know it by a more boorish synonym — to a male subordinate, it may be “manifestly inappropriate and obnoxious,” as one federal appellate court ruled last week, but it’s probably not sex discrimination.
More after the jump…
Under federal law (Title VII), employers cannot discriminate because of one’s sex. While Title VII does not explicitly coverage transgender employees (i.e., someone born female who presents male, and vice-versa; also known as gender identity), the EEOC’s position is that transgender employees are protected too. Indeed, they’ve begun filing federal lawsuits on behalf of transgender employees who claim to have been discriminated against.
But, Courts have not uniformly accepted the EEOC’s position. Indeed, the state of the law here is very much unsettled.
Just before Thanksgiving, a Texas federal court considered whether an employer can discriminate under Title VII based purely on gender identity…and get away with it.
More after the jump…
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To prove sexual harassment, a plaintiff must have been subjected to pervasive or severe behavior based on the plaintiff’s sex. Further, not only would an objective person have to find the behavior offensive, but the plaintiff must be offended as well.
Usually, when a plaintiff claims sexual harassment, a court takes for granted that conduct at issue offended the plaintiff.
But, I just read about a case that bucked the trend.
More on this wacky case, and some workplace lessons for you guys…after the jump…
Even without a federal law that specifically bans discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identify, it’s no secret that one of the EEOC’s top priorities is to protect LGBT workers from discrimination.
And the EEOC is being quite transparent about it, with a new guide for employers and employees.
I’ve got that for you after the jump…
Remember that Americans with Disabilities Act case involving Walgreens and the $1.39 bag of chips. In that one, the store appeared to really step in it by firing a diabetic who ate a bag of chips from the store without paying for it. The employee claimed that she needed the chips for her diabetes. The store defended its actions by arguing that the employee violated its no-grazing policy. $180,000 later, that case settled.
I don’t know how much the chicken poppers sell for at Wal-Mart. And the case I read over the weekend involving the company’s no-grazing policy didn’t settle either…
Click for more…
Bending iPhone6’s? Derek Jeter’s last home game in Yankee pinstripes? Attorney General Eric Holder to resign?
Bah!
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was the one stealing the headlines yesterday — err, doing something that I decided to be most blogworthy.
Details on two historic lawsuits after the jump…
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