Judge Dismisses Case Over Transgender Embalmer's Firing
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of a transgender embalmer who was fired by a Detroit-area funeral home after disclosing that she was transitioning from male to female and would dress as a woman.
U.S. District Judge Sean Cox ruled Thursday that R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home didn't discriminate against Aimee Stephens — formerly Anthony Stephens. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Garden City funeral home on behalf of Stephens, who was fired in 2013 after telling her employer she was transitioning.
Attorney Doug Wardlow — representing the business in the case v. the EEC — said Stephens violated the company's sex-specific dress code and that employees are simply asked to dress "in a manner sensitive to grieving family members and friends."
The funeral home, he said, did not break any laws and there was no discrimination.
"What the EEC is trying to do here is ask the court to rule in a way that no other court has ever ruled in this country," Wardlow told WWJ's Zahra Huber in an interview last week. "And basically that there should be a transgender exception to the rule of law that says sex-specific dress codes can be applied and that they don't violate Title VII" — which is the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in employment.
Wardlow said Title VII does not protect against discrimination based on transgender status and that the federal government is trying to expand the scope of sex discrimination laws to cover transgender people.
The EEOC in 2014 sued the funeral home and a Florida eye clinic, saying it was the first time it had filed lawsuits to protect transgender people in the workplace. The commission settled with the eye clinic.
The EEOC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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