Transgender job shield axed

Protections against discrimination don’t cover gender identity, Atty. Gen. Sessions says in policy reversal.

WASHINGTON — The civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in the workplace does not apply to transgender employees, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has decided, continuing a shift by the Justice Department against the more LGBTQfriendly policies championed by the Obama administration.

Sessions reversed a 2014 decision by a predecessor, Eric H. Holder Jr., that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, also prohibits employers from taking any actions based on a person’s gender identity.

Although it “provides various protections to transgender individuals,” Title VII does not prohibit discrimination based on someone’s gender identity because the law, written in 1964, does not mention it, Sessions wrote in a memorandum. “‘Sex’ is ordinarily defined to mean biologically male or female.”

“The Department of Justice cannot expand the law beyond what Congress has provided,” said Devin O’Malley, a Justice Department spokesman. “Unfortunately, the last administration abandoned that fundamental principle, which necessitated today’s action.”

Sessions said he does not “condone mistreatment on the basis of gender identity” and is not expressing an opinion as to whether Congress should change the law. As a U.S. senator, he voted against a 2009 law that extended hate crime protections to sexual orientation, but he said the department would continue to “vigorously” prosecute such crimes, including ones against transgender people.

The Trump administration moved early to start scuttling Obama’s transgender policies. In February, the administration revoked a rule instructing school districts to allow students to choose bathrooms based on their gender identity.

The memo on Title VII follows another decision this summer to intervene in a discrimination case brought by Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor in New York who said he was fired because he was gay. In a brief filed July 26 — the same day that President Trump announced on Twitter that transgender people would not be allowed to serve in the military — the Justice Department argued that the civil rights law did not apply to cases of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Also this week, the Justice Department filed court papers defending Trump’s right to exclude transgender people from the military.