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Supporters wave the LGBTQ+ flag outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 8, 2019.
(AP Images/Susan Walsh)
HEARTBREAK AND HOPE
Yesterday marked a landmark legal victory for LGBTQ+ workers, which scholars say could significantly expand transgender rights. It seemed to be a new start after a week of tragedy and political blows in the transgender community.
On June 8, the body of 27-year-old Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells was found in Philadelphia. Fells had been stabbed and suffered trauma to her head and face. Less than 24 hours later, 25-year-old Riah Milton was fatally shot during a robbery attempt in Liberty Township, Ohio.
- The back-to-back slayings of black trans women further highlighted what the American Medical Association called an “epidemic” last year: the killing of trans women of color.
- The Human Rights Campaign reported that in 2019, black women represented 91 percent of murdered trans people.
- In 2020, at least 15 transgender or gender non-conforming people have been violently killed, according to the HRC. Many of them were people of color.
As the trans community mourned the deaths of Fells and Milton, the Trump administration finalized a rule on Friday that would roll back protections against the discrimination of transgender patients in health care.
- In 2016, the Obama administration changed federal health guidelines to include protections against gender identity discrimination by doctors, health care facilities and insurance companies.
- The Department of Health and Human Services announced that the final rule would be based on "the plain meaning of the word 'sex' as male or female and as determined by biology."
- The move was announced on the four-year anniversary of the massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando.
On Sunday, tens of thousands of protesters across the United States marched for the rights of trans black people.
- In New York City, an estimated 15,000 people gathered at the Brooklyn Museum. The protesters dressed in white, a tribute to the NAACP’s 1917 silent protest of violence against black people.
- An estimated 25,000 people marched through Hollywood in honor of Tony McDade, a black transgender man who police fatally shot in Tallahassee, Florida.
- Rallies were also held in Boston, Chicago and San Antonio.
And, finally, after a week of sorrow and solidarity, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ+ employees from discrimination based on sex.
- In the 6-3 decision, the court ruled that employees cannot be discriminated against based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- Aimee Stephens, the plaintiff in one of the three cases before the court, was fired from her job as a funeral director two weeks after she told her boss that — after years of hiding her identity — she would be coming to work as a transgender woman.
- Stephens died in May at age 59. At oral arguments in the case last fall, she wore a black skirt and white blouse — the same clothes she would have worn to her job as a funeral director.
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