Outrage over U-turn on transgender workers
WASHINGTON: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reversed a three-year- old Justice Department policy that protected transgender workers from discrimination under federal law.
In a memo to his US attorney offices and agency heads, Sessions said that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect transgender people from workplace discrimination by private employers and state and local governments.
“Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination encompasses discrimination between men and women but does not encompass discrimination based on gender identity per se, including transgender status,” Sessions wrote in the memo dated last Wednesday.
The attorney general’s memo says the Justice Department will take this position “in all pending and future matters,” indicating his policy will have a wideranging impact.
Civil rights groups quickly lashed out at Sessions and accused him of “yet another rollback of protections for LGBTQ people.”
“Today’s announcement is the latest example of how the Trump administration and the Sessions Justice Department are undermining equal rights and dignity for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individual,” said Vanita Gupta, former head of the Civil Rights Division in the Obama administration and now president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Justice spokesman Devin O’Malley said Sessions changed the policy because the previous administration had not accurately interpreted the civil rights law.
“The Justice Department cannot expand the law beyond what Congress has provided,” O’Malley said. “Unfortunately, the last administration abandoned that fundamental principle, which necessitated today’s action.” Sessions’ memo was first reported by BuzzFeed.
Sessions’ memo went out on the same day the Justice Department asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump’s proposed ban on transgender people serving in the military.
In their federal court filing, Justice attorneys called the lawsuit “premature times over.”
The lawsuit is filed in Washington by two gay rights organisations representing eight transgender US service members. The Justice Department said the lawsuit was asking US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for the District of Columbia “to prejudge the constitutionality of a future Government policy” that has not been drafted. several
The groups that sought an injunction said that even though Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has not taken action against service members as the Pentagon reviews its options, he committed in an August guidance document to carrying out the Trump policy by Mar 23. As a result, service members face the imminent prospect of being denied reenlistment, promotions, deployments and even medical care, the groups said.
In the first response to challenges to the ban in several courts, however, the government said that none of those actions will take place while the policy is being studied.
“No actual discharge or denial of accession has occurred, and they will not suffer a hardship if the Court withholds consideration until after the policies challenged in this case are implemented and are found to impact Plaintiffs,” Ryan Parker and Andrew Carmichael wrote for the Justice Department’s civil division.
As for two named plaintiffs, Regan Kibby, who is a midshipman at the US Naval Academy, and Dylan Cohere, an Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadet, the Justice Department claimed that despite the threat to their future enlistment, neither will be set to apply for officer’s commissions until they complete studies in 2020 at the earliest.
The government’s 44-page filing before a midnight deadline did not argue the merits of a ban, but argued on procedural grounds that the court has no jurisdiction yet to act. — WPBloomberg
Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination encompasses discrimination between men and women but does not encompass discrimination based on gender identity per se, including transgender status. Jeff Sessions, Attorney General