Outrage After Jeff Sessions Revokes Government Policy Protecting Transgender Workers

‘The Attorney General Does Not Get to Make Law, but He Should at Least Read It’

Many are outraged after news broke that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has rescinded an Obama-era policy protecting transgender people in the workplace. Late Thursday morning Buzzfeed reported Sessions issued a memo declaring Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect transgender workers, despite many federal courts and the EEOC ruling that it does. In 2014 Attorney General Eric Holder, under President Barack Obama, declared that the “best reading” of the law makes clear it protects transgender persons.

Many on social media are expressing anger and outrage, and many are retweeting this 2016 tweet from then-candidate Donald Trump that clearly was a lie:

“Today marks another low point for a Department of Justice, which has been cruelly consistent in its hostility towards the LGBT community and in particular its inability to treat transgender people with basic dignity and respect,” the ACLU said on a statement. “This Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions has time and time again made it clear that its explicit agenda is to attack and undermine the civil rights of our most vulnerable communities, rather than standing up for them as they should be doing.”

Other LGBT civil rights groups have also expressed anger and outrage:

“The Trump/Pence Administration is determined to promote discrimination through a false view of the law that has been rejected again and again by the courts. According to Sessions, an employer is free to hang a ‘Transgender Need Not Apply’ sign in their window. Fortunately, he is dead wrong on the law. Neither President Trump nor Jeff Sessions can change the law, but they are determined to sow confusion and put their seal of approval on discrimination,” National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling said in a statement. 

“The Attorney General does not get to make law, but he should at least read it,” Keisling added. “Simply: he is once again abdicating his responsibilities to enforce the law. Courts have repeatedly ruled that transgender people are protected by sex discrimination laws in employment, education, housing and healthcare. We’ll see him in court.”

GLAAD:

Here’s what people on Twitter are saying:

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle:

President of The New Agenda:

Nation’s oldest & largest civil rights coalition, led by former head of Obama DOJ civil rights division, Vanita Gupta:

Head of HRC:

ACLU:

NYT bestselling author and transgender activist:

Legal Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights:

Chair, US Commission on Civil Rights:

Virginia Democratic Congressman:

Others:

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