News & Commentary

It was Monday, May 9, 2016 and the week began with a press conference. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, were to announce a legal challenge to North Carolina’s anti-transgender House Bill 2. Lynch in her remarks compared laws like HB2 to Jim Crow laws of the past and as the nation’s first female, African-American woman attorney general her words directly confronting discrimination against the transgender community held special weight.

For decades transgender people have been fired or turned away from jobs just because of who they are. Courts and federal agencies are finally starting to recognize this for what it is — illegal sex discrimination — and they’re holding employers accountable.But now, a Michigan funeral home is trying to turn back the clock by claiming that this country’s religious freedom protections give it a license to discriminate against transgender employees. As we explain in our recently filed friend-of-the-court brief, religious freedom doesn’t give employers a free pass to evade our civil rights laws, whether those laws are being used to remedy discrimination against women, people of color, or transgender individuals.

Near the end of March, legislators and the governor of North Carolina jammed through the now infamous HB2 “bathroom bill” mandating that transgender people use only those restrooms that match their assigned sex at birth.  Immediately, there was uproar from business, LGBTQ advocates, constitutional law scholars and everyday ordinary people, who saw through the ridiculous idea that transgender people are somehow dangerous and need to be swept into segregated spaces.

Does religious freedom include the right to discriminate? The first amendment says you and your religious exercise are protected rights. But practicing your faith can’t come at the expense of other people’s well-being, public safety, and taxpayer dollars.

When I began writing a series of stories chronicling the lives of transgender people, my goal was to help educate the public. Yet I’m learning just as much in the process.

It’s no secret that transgender people are becoming more visible on a national stage. There’s actress Laverne Cox, reality star Caitlyn Jenner, and even shows like "Transparent" that try with honest intentions to shine some much-needed light on the issues that affect the trans community the most. These are all good things, of course. 

ACLU at the Michigan Capitol – April 7, 2016

ACLU at the Michigan Capitol – February 8, 2016

The following is an excerpt from the "Great, Not Big" blog, which is authored by Carl Erickson, CEO and cofounder of Atomic Object, a software product development company with offices in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor. Atomic Object is a member of the Michigan Competitive Workforce Coalition, co-founded by the ACLU of Michigan with the goal of updating Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) to include sexual orientation and gender identity.