NATIONAL STORY MATTHEW BRADFORD. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MATTHEW BRADFORD WHAT THE SUPREME COURT DECISION ABOUT LGBTQIA+ RIGHT TO WORK ACTUALLY REVEALS BY ZEPHYR WILKINS “SURREAL.” This was the most common response from members of our city’s beloved Denver Gay Men’s Chorus (DGMC) and Denver Women’s Chorus (DWC) in regards to the Bostock v. Clayton County Supreme Court ruling on June 15 which protects LGBTQIA+ people from discrimination at work. The ruling was handed down as the nation grapples with a rising death toll from coronavirus, an unemployment rate climbing to Great Depression levels, and a president more intent on protecting statues of Confederate traitors from vandalism than protecting Black and Brown human beings from police brutality. Any type of “progress” under these circumstances would be jarring. Perhaps it is for this reason that most chorus members were thrown when they got the push notification on their phone that the decision had been made. “I was not even aware that the Supreme Court was considering, let alone going to issue, a ruling for any outstanding LGBT cases,” stated Matthew Bradford from the DGMC. TJ Kizuka, Bradford’s chorus compatriot, agreed. “For me, the ruling on marriage equality was such a huge day…I was with many of my LGBTQ+ friends at the time, so it really mentally struck me in a bigger way than this ruling. I think also there were less hard-hitting distractions in our nation at the time, so [the marriage equality ruling] was easier to follow.” But the jolting surprise of the ruling doesn’t affect their ability to understand its historical significance. “I would love that this — along with the Stonewall Riots, the Pulse Massacre, marriage equality, Harvey Milk, Marsha P. Johnson, and other notable LGBTQ+ moments — were included in textbooks and history lessons for America’s youth,” Kizuka said. Even if this doesn’t come to fruition, it will still have a profound effect on millions of lives because, like Bradford, who works in human resources, pointed out: companies across the U.S. will now be reviewing their existing policies and, in the process, may find they need to make adjustments in their employment practices. To be clear, this ruling does not require them to rewrite their policies by adding “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” to the policies they already have. Rather, the ruling states that LGBTQIA+ rights have been protected since 1964 when Title VII of the Civil Rights Act forbade employers from discrimination “because of [an employee’s] race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Denver-born Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion on this case, argued that an “employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or the AIDS crisis, transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex.” Gorsuch gives an example. If an employer fires a man for loving a man but doesn’t fire a woman for loving a man, then the employer is discriminating against the male employee because of his sex; that is illegal. Thus, because the ruling indicated that the term “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act includes both gender identity and sexual orientation, companies will not have to rewrite their policies to include these terms. What, then, do HR departments across the U.S. need to focus on? Drawing on personal experience, Madison Kuebler of the DWC provided insight. Like many LGBTQIA+ people across the country, Kuebler “hid in plain sight.” As a result, she had to endure the pain when “employers [would] say hateful things about LGBTQIA+ folx in front of me.” She also felt guilt and shame from being “disingenuous” with her friends and colleagues out of fear of being fired. Situations where LGBTQIA+ people “come out” to employers and colleagues that say hateful things about them are a potential powder keg; if not handled properly, the result could be disastrous. As such, Bradford believes companies should review their approaches to employee retention, risk 6 DENVER VOICE August 2020
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