EEOC Commissioner Feldblum responds to my post about transgender discrimination

You’re right, Commissioner Feldblum. Social media is awesome!

Last Friday, I posted here about a recent federal-court decision addressing the sex discrimination claims of a transgender employee. What drew my attention to the case was this Facebook status update from EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, in which she touted the court’s decision as further support for the EEOC’s position that transgender discrimination is sex discrimination under Title VII. In my Friday post, I concluded that, while the court did allow the plaintiff’s sex discrimination claims to proceed to trial, it wasn’t because of her transgender status. Rather, the court reasoned that the employer may have engaged in unlawful sex stereotyping. Sex stereotyping definitely violates Title VII.

So, yesterday morning, just as I was finishing up patting myself on the back — I literally spent 72 hours patting myself on the back — I saw this tweet from Commissioner Feldblum with a link to her response to my blog post.

**Gulp**

Oh, I’m kidding. I immediately retweeted, checked an item off of my bucket list, and recommenced patting myself on the back. But enough about me…

I commend all of you to check out Commissioner Feldblum’s post on transgender discrimination. While Commissioner Feldblum and I may not agree on the LGBT legal theories to support a claim of sex discrimination, her post is aptly entitled “Either Way You Get There.” Indeed, I’ll readily concede that Title VII often protects claims of sex discrimination asserted by LGBT plaintiffs.

And even if an employer does prevail in court, the cost and time spent on litigation won’t have many defendants feeling like winners.

Image Credit: Nicholas Mutton [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons