Sessions wrote in a memo that a landmark 1964 civil rights law does not apply to gender identity.
U. S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is ending an Obama-era policy protecting transgender employees from discrimination, showing yet another strike from the Trump administration on LGBT rights.
Sessions wrote in a memo that a landmark 1964 civil rights law does not apply to gender identity, despite former President Barack Obama expanding that definition when he was in office.
“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,” says the memo, obtained by BuzzFeed News on Thursday.
The Title VII protections of the Civil Rights Act explicitly prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. It does not directly rule out discrimination based on gender identity, an issue that saw unprecedented attention during Obama’s presidency. Obama’s Justice Department pushed for the policy to apply to transgender citizens. Sessions now argues that was essentially an overreach of federal power.
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Sessions wrote that his new position will apply to future and pending legal matters relating to transgender workers, meaning that it could have an immediate impact on open discrimination cases.
News of Sessions’ memo surfaced within a day of the Justice Department filing a brief asking for a federal court in Washington, D. C., to drop a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s ban on transgender military service.
Sessions has made an apparent mission of dismantling LGBT protections since taking over the Justice Department. The department has taken away Obama programs allowing states to determine their transgender rights and issuing guidance to schools for transgender bathroom use. Sessions also filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, citing religious objections.
The reversal will inevitably be met with legal challenges from civil rights groups, and the ACLU has already vowed to fight it.
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“This Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions has time and time again made it clear that its explicit agenda is to attack and undermine the civil rights of our most vulnerable communities, rather than standing up for them as they should be doing,” James Esseks, the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project director, said in a statement.
“Discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, just as DOJ recognized years ago. We are confident that the courts will continue to agree and will reject the politically driven decision by Attorney General Sessions.”
