Attorney General Eric Holder
The Obama administration once again moves America forward on protections for transgender workers. Months after President Obama signed an
executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, the Justice Department has announced that the Civil Rights Act
forbids public employers from discriminating on the basis of gender identity:
The department will no longer take the position that the "prohibition against discrimination based on sex does not encompass gender identity per se (including transgender discrimination)," Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said this week in a memo to U.S. attorneys.
It's a reversal of a position the department took as recently as 2006, the memo says.
This doesn't end the need for a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would prohibit discrimination by private employers, but since the incoming Republican Congress will certainly not be passing any such thing, it's an important step.