Kansas has joined with 15 other states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn employment protections for transgender Americans.
The states position is wrong-headed and counterproductive. Kansas should rethink its approach to this issue.
That facts of the case are simple enough. In 2013, a transgender woman named Aimee Stephens was fired from her job with a Michigan funeral home. The business owner said he believed a persons sex is an immutable God-given gift and that he would be violating Gods commands if he kept Stephens on the payroll.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a discrimination complaint on Stephens behalf. A district court found for the funeral home on religious grounds, but last March, an appeals court upheld her complaint.
Discrimination against employees, either because of their failure to conform to sex stereotypes or their transgender and transitioning status, is illegal under civil rights law, the judges said.
Predictably, several states, including Kansas, were infuriated by the ruling. Last week, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.
In an often tortured friend-of-the-court brief, the states somehow argued that sex discrimination is different from gender-status discrimination. Sex refers to ones biological status as male or female, not to a changeable psychological view of ones gender, the states argued.
The claim puts Kansas, and the other states, on the wrong side of history and reality. Transgender Americans are fully a part of the nations workforce. Discriminating against transgender and transitioning employees makes no more sense than discriminating on the basis of race or religion.
Kansas involvement in this case is yet more evidence of the states intolerant approach to gender policy. Former Gov. Sam Brownback was notoriously backward on same-sex marriage and civil rights, and Gov. Jeff Colyer so far has refused to issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity in state employment.
THE STATES participation in appealing the funeral case, led by Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, reinforces these concerns. Kansas is already struggling to attract new residents and businesses; another unnecessary attack on civil rights will make the task that much harder.
Missouri has not joined with the other states to ask for a Supreme Court review. Thats surprising, given Attorney General Josh Hawleys overall approach to policy, but its welcome nonetheless.
We are well into the 21st century. Transgender Americans are our colleagues, our neighbors and our friends. The law should protect their basic rights, a fact that Schmidt and the state appear to have forgotten.
The Kansas City Star