CHICAGO – State Senator Heather Steans issued the following statement on news the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of extending Title VII employment protections to LGBT workers:

“This decision represents long-overdue acknowledgment that LGBT people deserve protection against arbitrary discrimination on the job,” Steans said. “I hope this decision also serves as the basis to undercut the president’s cruel move last week to deny trans Americans the right to medical care. This decision is justice for the LGBT community.”

The Supreme Court’s decision applies to two sets of cases. One involved a pair of lawsuits from gay men alleging they were fired because of their sexual orientation, and the other involved a suit from a transgender woman, Aimee Stephens, who alleged she was fired when she revealed her gender identity to her employers.

The ruling explicitly establishes that workplace discrimination against LGBT people violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a conclusion first drawn by federal courts in Chicago and New York.

“In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee's sex when deciding to fire that employee,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in his ruling for the majority. “We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”