Court Ruling a Setback for Transgender Rights Movement

DETROIT, MI — A federal judge on Thursday delivered a setback to the transgender-rights movement with a decision that said a Detroit-area funeral home didn’t discriminate against an employee who was fired during her transition from a man to a woman.

U.S. District Judge Sean Cox said in the 56-page ruling that not only are transgender individuals not a protected class under federal employment laws, the owner of RG. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home in Garden City can’t be forced to make employment decisions that are contrary to his sincerely held religious beliefs.

The case involves Aimee Stephens, formerly Anthony Stephens, who was fired from her job in 2013 after telling her boss that she had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and was planning to begin dressing as a woman. The funeral home’s owner said that what she was “proposing to do” was unacceptable, according to the lawsuit.

The funeral home owners argued that employees are required to dress in a manner that is sensitive to grieving family members and friends. Stephens had worked as a funeral director and embalmer at the company’s Garden City location for six years.

The funeral home didn’t dispute that Stephens was fired because she planned to dress as a woman while at work, but Cox wrote that forcing the funeral home owner to go against his sincerely held religious beliefs “would impose a substantial burden on its ability to conduct business in accordance with its sincerely-held religious beliefs.”

Stephens’ lawsuit alleging the funeral home engaged in unlawful gender stereotyping was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which used it and a lawsuit in Florida as test cases to pursue protections for transgender workers under Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination or harassment.

However, Cox emphasized in his ruling that “neither transgender status nor gender identity are protected classes under Title VII.”

The funeral home owners had sought protection under the 2013 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but Cox allowed it to proceed.

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