The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan recently held that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") may proceed on a case against a funeral home on behalf of a transgender employee transitioning from male to female.  The EEOC claimed that the employee's termination after informing her employer of her intent to transition constituted sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  To support this contention, the plaintiff's complaint pled that the discrimination claim was based in part on the fact that the employee's transgender status did not confirm with the company's sex-based preferences, expectations or stereotypes.

The employer filed a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the EEOC failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.  To support its motion, the employer argued that the agency could not proceed on the Title VII claim because that law does not provide protections to employees on the basis of transgender status.  The court did not dispute the fact that Title VII does not list transgender status as a protected category, but noted that the EEOC had pled that the employer's conduct constituted sex-stereotyping gender discrimination in violation of Title VII.  This was sufficient to state a claim, the court reasoned, and the employer's motion to dismiss was therefore denied.  EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc.