It’s PRIDE 2020 and included in the rise of consciousness among so many citizens in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer and the current swell of Black Lives Matter protests around the country is another reason to be hopeful. In a huge victory for LGBTQ+ employees, the Supreme Court handed down the Bostock v Clayton County decision to include legislative protection for ALL LGBTQ+ folks in America. The majority decision written by Neil Gorsuch stated:
“In Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”
In the Bostock v. Clayton County case SCOTUS considered Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids employment discrimination that occurs “because of [an employee’s] race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” While the Civil Rights Act didn’t set out to protect people who had same sex attractions and alternative gender identities, the context of equality embedded in this law is what was considered paramount.
As a sex therapist who works with straight and LGBTQ+ clients who struggle daily with shame around their erotic desires and gender identity, this decision provides a long awaited public affirmation that their jobs are legally protected. I have heard many a client articulate why they need to keep their sexual behaviors on the down low, or dress one way at work for fear of appearing too gay, fem, butch or non-binary. 
As a white therapist who sees Latinx, Black, and Brown clients individually or with their partners, I’m aware that sharing sexual experiences and challenges can be a harder bridge to cross due to racist experiences they have had with the majority of past authority figures along with generational racist trauma genetically inherited through their DNA. I may also add to this load with unconscious statements that a client may feel angry about but won’t reveal to me. The fear a client experiences of being judged, blamed or dismissed by one more white expert is palpable in a session and I try to ensure the racism ‘elephant in the room’ is addressed early on by encouraging clients to let me know if I’ve said or done anything that triggers or angers them. I ask them how they feel I am white and how they came to choose a white therapist.
With this latest Bostock v. Clayton County decision, the Supreme Court justices have cleared a path for the wider protection of the Equality Act which will need to be finalized in the Senate since Congress already passed it last year. According to Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal: “We have a long way to go in securing the full and undeniable civil rights of LGBTQ people, especially those in our community who are Black, Indigenous and people of color for whom their sexual orientation or gender identity is only one of many barriers to equal opportunity in this country. But today’s victory is a necessary step forward on the journey toward equal justice for all without caveats or qualifications.”
Most American citizens understand that discrimination is wrong, so the hope is that with the Equality Act, the loopholes and cracks not addressed in this decision will be covered by comprehensive federal protections. The Equality Act updates and expands protections in the workplace not only on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, but also on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin and religion in the workplace, the marketplace, and beyond.”
Last June we celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Stonewall Riots begun by gay men, and trans-women who with their protests proclaimed they had had enough and refused to be beaten, arrested and killed sorely because of who they chose to have sex with and how they identified in gender expression. Stonewall marked the beginning of the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement. Today we are in the midst of a new chapter of a multi cultural response to continued violence and discriminatory arrests of BIPOC in every American city despite facing a deadly COVID 19 viral pandemic.
However, just last year alone at least 18 transgender people the majority of whom were people of color, were murdered in the U.S. This SCOTUS decision could be the most hopeful moment in decades to pass a law that protects all LGBTQ+ folks and impacts Black and Brown queer folk at a time when the wounds of racism have been violently torn open once again. When the outside world brings confirmation, validation and freedoms into the therapeutic work my associates and I do with our clients, it is a day to celebrate, even if it is cautiously. I say cautiously because of a case that is coming down the pike to the Supreme Court next fall challenging the rights of religious organizations who feel they should have a broad right to engage in anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
Remember that case brought by a bakery owner in Colorado who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple’s wedding because his religious opposition to same sex marriage? Yep, that one. Well that’s the issue coming up again this fall to the Supreme Court in another case and Gorsuch sided with the religious bakery owners last time. So by all means let’s celebrate but the battle for racial, sexual orientation and gender identity equality is very much a slow work in progress.
Happy Pride 2020 ! BLACK LIVES MATTER
