Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

Employers remember the seminal Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., where the Court held that Title VII’s “because of sex” protections extend to sexual orientation and transgender status.  (See our previous blog entry.)   Now, on the one-year anniversary of that influential case, the EEOC has issued guidance to clarify whether employers can segregate bathrooms by gender or sex.  That question was conspicuously left unresolved in Bostock.

In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on an employee’s sexual orientation and/or transgendered status.  Though Title VII does not expressly mention “sexual orientation” or “transgender,” the Court held that “homosexuality and transgender status are inextricably bound up with sex” and that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex”—a protected class under Title VII.