Seems like the courts are always willing to expand the list of employees and job applicants who can sue for bias. The latest pitfall for employers:
Transgender bias.
In one recent case, an employee was offered a job, and he accepted. When he got the offer, though, he told his new boss he wanted to discuss a “personal matter” — that he was in the process of becoming a woman and would soon be coming to work in women’s clothes.
The boss’s first reaction was to ask, “Why in the world would you want to do that?” Then, after a brief conversation, she told the new hire he’d given her “a lot to think about.”
The job offer was rescinded, and the applicant sued.
The court agreed that there is no federal law banning discrimination on the basis of transexuality. However, other courts have held that refusing to hire candidates because they don’t fit traditional gender stereotypes is illegal under regular gender bias law.
The judge applied that standard in this case, saying that “because gender identity is a component of sex, discrimination on the basis of gender identity is sex discrimination.”
The court refused to dismiss the case, and the company will now have to face a costly trial or pay an expensive settlement.
Cite: Schroer v. Billington
