When Congress passed these laws and the president signed them, sexual orientation wasn’t on the forefront of the public mind. That, obviously, has changed and today, it’s front and center in our world. The courts have given a mishmash of decisions that vary on the issue of gender identity and sexual orientation in employment.

Some courts have come back and said that even though sexual orientation and gender identity was not listed in Title VII, clearly it falls under “sex” discrimination. Some courts have come back and said, nope; it’s not covered. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a group of conflicting cases.

But making non-discrimination policy or not, ultimately falls to Congress. This shouldn’t be left to the Supreme Court, whose job is to interpret the law, not create it. I agree with Second Circuit Court Judge Gerard E. Lynch’s dissent in one of these cases. He wrote:

To keep reading, click here: Is There “Equality” in the Equality Act?

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A female coach and physical education teacher sued the school district because another employee, also female, made crude remarks about her breasts, touched her without permission, and said, “I will think of you next time I am f—ing.”

A female employee receives sexually explicit text messages from the man responsible for training her. While the trainer doesn’t have hire/fire authority over her, he certainly can influence her career. His wife eventually finds out and sends the female employee a profane message. The employee complains to her supervisor and is fired for violating a work rule.

A boss tells his employee to “date,” and send “nudie” pictures to, a potential client in order to help convince this client to move his business. The boss offers the employee a big bonus in exchange for this, but doesn’t end up giving her one.

All three seem like cut-and-dried sexual harassment cases. If I were the human resources manager in any of these cases, the perpetrator would have been fired, or at least severely disciplined, for inappropriate workplace behavior. But, in the crazy world of sexual harassment law, inappropriate sexual workplace behavior doesn’t always equal sexual harassment, even when it seems inextricably tied to sexual behavior.

to keep reading, click here: Social Mores Have Changed; Biology Hasn’t

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