Section 7

Citation: Section 7
Parent Document: Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2020-06-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4760997/bostock-v-clayton-county/ ↗

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county, Mr. Bostock began participating in a gay recrea-
tional softball league. Not long after that, influential mem-
bers of the community allegedly made disparaging com-
ments about Mr. Bostock’s sexual orientation and
participation in the league. Soon, he was fired for conduct
“unbecoming” a county employee.
   Donald Zarda worked as a skydiving instructor at Alti-
tude Express in New York. After several seasons with the
company, Mr. Zarda mentioned that he was gay and, days
later, was fired.
   Aimee Stephens worked at R. G. & G. R. Harris Funeral
Homes in Garden City, Michigan. When she got the job,
Ms. Stephens presented as a male. But two years into her
service with the company, she began treatment for despair
and loneliness. Ultimately, clinicians diagnosed her with
gender dysphoria and recommended that she begin living
as a woman. In her sixth year with the company, Ms. Ste-
phens wrote a letter to her employer explaining that she
planned to “ live and work full-time as a woman” after she
returned from an upcoming vacation. The funeral home
fired her before she left, telling her “this is not going to work
out.”
   While these cases began the same way, they ended differ-
ently. Each employee brought suit under Title VII alleging
unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex. 78 Stat. 255,
42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(a)(1). In Mr. Bostock’s case, the Elev-
enth Circuit held that the law does not prohibit employers
from firing employees for being gay and so his suit could be
dismissed as a matter of law. 723 Fed. Appx. 964 (2018).
Meanwhile, in Mr. Zarda’s case, the Second Circuit con-
cluded that sexual orientation discrimination does violate
Title VII and allowed his case to proceed. 883 F. 3d 100
(2018). Ms. Stephens’s case has a more complex procedural
history, but in the end the Sixth Circuit reached a decision
along the same lines as the Second Circuit’s, holding that
Title VII bars employers from firing employees because of
4               BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY Opinion of the Court

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