I’m gonna pause for a sec while you go and grab a copy of your company’s employee handbook. Now open it up to the anti-harassment policy and, click through, because your world may be about to be rocked…
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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The Employer Handbook Blog