DOJ Reverses Stance on Gender Identity Discrimination
On October 4, 2017, the United States Department of Justice issued a memorandum reversing its stance on whether the prohibition on sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes discrimination based on gender identity. The memorandum was authored by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In the memorandum, Attorney General Sessions supports his conclusion in part by stating that “Title VII expressly prohibits discrimination ‘because of . . . sex’ and several other protected traits, but it does not refer to gender identity.” Although the memorandum explicitly withdraws a 2014 memorandum by former Attorney General Eric Holder who reached the opposite conclusion, Attorney General Sessions continues to state that “[n]othing in this memorandum should be construed to condone mistreatment on the basis of gender identity.”