At Bilerico, Dr. Jillian Weiss reports on a success in Federal Court last week. A federal judge in Georgia ruled that it was illegal for the State of Georgia to fire an employee after she told her employer that she was transitioning.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled late Friday that the Georgia General Assembly illegally discriminated against a transgender woman by firing her when she announced her plan to transition from male to female.Jillian provides an in-depth analysis of the case and what she describes as the "incredibly brilliant Lambda Legal strategy."
In so doing, the Georgia federal court has joined a number of other courts around the country that have ruled similarly. The case, Vandiver Elizabeth Glenn v. Sewell R. Brumby, could now be appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As I argued in a recent law review article, I believe that a case on this issue will make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the next few years, and, what's more, I believe that the Supreme Court would uphold the application of sex discrimination law to transgender employees. Many scholars disagree with my analysis, but that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
The Glenn opinion has several interesting features, the most unusual of which is that the complainant won the case, not after a trial, but on a motion for summary judgment.
