Nathaniel M. Glasser, a Member of the Firm in the Labor and Employment practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, discussed a recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling in a Quartz article titled “The First Big Policy Win for Gay Rights in the US after Same-Sex Marriage,” by Sonali Kohli.
Following is an excerpt:
This is not a new stance for the EEOC; it made a similar ruling on transgender discrimination three years ago, and has successfully used sex discrimination as a basis to litigate LGBT workplace discrimination for a while—using the idea that sex discrimination applies because people are being punished based on who they associate with, and citing a 1989 Supreme Court decision that discrimination on the basis of gender stereotyping is unconstitutional, as Glasser noted in the National Law Review.
Glasser tells Quartz that this ruling goes beyond those justifications, though; an employee doesn’t need to prove the discrimination involved gender stereotyping or associating with the same sex for an actionable complaint. Now, being discriminated against just for being lesbian, gay, or bisexual is actionable, by the commission’s standards.
Mr. Glasser also wrote on this topic in a recent edition of the Epstein Becker Green Take 5 Newsletter.