Politics
Trans victims of workplace bias find relief in historic decisions
First time EEOC has investigated and ruled for a trans employee


The Justice Department has awarded Mia Macy relief on the basis that she was discriminated against by ATF because she’s transgender. (Screen capture from a Center for American Progress video).
Transgender victims of workplace discrimination are for the first time finding restitution in a pair of decisions handed down from the federal government finding anti-trans job bias at two institutions — one a federal contractor, the other an arm of the U.S. government.
The two decisions — first reported by Buzzfeed — are the result of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is charged with enforcing laws against workplace discrimination, finding last year in a historic, unanimous decision transgender workplace discrimination amounts to gender discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
One of the decisions is the culmination of litigation in that very case, known as Macy v. Holder, was initiated by the Transgender Law Center after the plaintiff was told she wouldn’t receive a job at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives’s crime laboratory in Walnut Creek, Calif., after she announced she would transition from male to female.
On July 8, the Department of Justice — to which the case was remanded after the EEOC made its decision last year — issued a final decision finding Macy indeed faced discrimination when she applied for the position and awarding her relief.
“[T]his office finds that the ATF discriminated against complainant based on her transgender status, and thus her sex, when it stopped complainant’s further participation in the hiring process for the NIBIN Ballistics Forensics Technician Laboratory position,” the decision states.
After applying for the job, Macy was told in January 2011 that she would receive a position at the laboratory. But after she disclosed in March 2011 she would transition from male to female, the contractor informed Macy the position was cut. Later, she was told someone else was awarded the job.
The 51-page decision — which was signed by Complaint Adjudication Officer Mark Gross and Complaint Adjudication Office Attorney Carl Taylor — lays out several terms for relief in the Macy case.
First, the Justice Department says ATF within 60 days of the decision must offer Macy that job she was seeking at the Walnut Creek factory and award her back pay and benefits — with interest — for the period between April 2011 to January 2012.
Additionally, the Justice Department says ATF must take corrective action to ensure future discrimination never occurs again; award Macy compensatory damages for any injuries she may have received; refund Macy her attorney’s fees; and post a notice within 30 days consistent with employment law.
In the other case, another transgender victim of workplace discrimination this week reached a settlement in a case filed against a Maryland federal contractor, according to the LGBT groups Freedom to Work and Lambda Legal, which represented the plaintiff in the case.
Little information is public about this case because the groups agreed as part of the settlement to withhold the amount won in damages, the name of the plaintiff and the name of the federal contractor.
However, the groups did disclose the nature of the discrimination the victim suffered, which included physical and verbal harassment over a two-year period and name-calling such as being called “tranny,” “drag queen” and “faggot.” According to the groups, the case moved forward after the EEOC reviewed the case and, in September 2012, issued a letter finding there was reasonable cause to believe the contractor engaged in transgender discrimination.
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, applauded EEOC for conducting a thorough examination that led to the victory for the alleged victim of transgender workplace discrimination.
“Coming just a few months after the EEOC issued its historic decision that transgender people are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the EEOC’s reasonable cause determination in this case is, to our knowledge, the first time in history that the EEOC has investigated allegations of anti-transgender harassment and ruled for the transgender employee,” Almeida said. “This case shows that the EEOC takes very seriously its role in protecting LGBT Americans’ freedom to work.”
Since the Employment Non-Discrimination Act isn’t law and Maryland has no statewide protections against anti-transgender discrimination, Title VII was the only way for the plaintiff in the case to seek legal restitution in response to the discrimination she faced. If President Obama signed an executive order prohibiting anti-LGBT workplace among federal contractors, that could have provided another source of relief, but the White House continues to withhold that directive.
Greg Nevins, supervising senior staff attorney in Lambda Legal’s Southern Regional Office in Atlanta, said the case demonstrates more action is needed at the federal level to protect workers from anti-LGBT discrimination.
“We need action by the 113th Congress to pass the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, and even more immediately, President Obama should sign the executive order banning LGBT discrimination by companies that profit from federal contracts,” Nevins said. “That executive order should have broad support across the political spectrum, since federal dollars should neither fund discrimination nor go to employers whose personnel and productivity suffer because discrimination and harassment are tolerated.”
Congress
Five HIV/AIDS activists arrested during USAID hearing
Protesters demanded full restoration of PEPFAR funding

Capitol Police on Thursday arrested five HIV/AIDS activists who disrupted a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that focused on the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The activists — including Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell, Housing Works CEO Charles King, and ACT UP NY co-founder Eric Sawyer — started chanting “PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) saves lives. Restore AIDS funding now” shortly after Max Primorac, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, began to testify. They also held posters that read “Trump kills people with AIDS worldwide.”
The Trump-Vance administration last month froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade last week reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. The Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to dismantle USAID, along with the suspension of nearly all U.S. foreign aid, has been “a catastrophe” for the global LGBTQ rights movement.
“I guess these guys don’t watch the news. They didn’t realize that PEPFAR was one of the many programs that did prove to be lifesaving, so the funding was restored,” said U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, after Capitol Police removed the activists from the room. “Somebody better give ’em a link to … I don’t know, maybe Fox News or something like that.”
Protesters interrupt a House hearing on USAID spending, demanding that funding be restored to PEPFAR, but "the funding was restored" says Rep. Brian Mast. pic.twitter.com/9bQduNEwnQ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 13, 2025
Russell and King are two of the dozens of HIV/AIDS activists who protested outside the State Department on Feb. 6 and demanded U.S. officials fully restore PEPFAR funding.
Politics
Trump picks Richard Grenell as interim Kennedy Center executive director
President proclaimed “no more drag shows” at D.C. institution

President Donald Trump on Monday picked Richard Grenell to serve as interim executive director of the Kennedy Center, just days after appointing himself chair the national cultural center and removing several members of the institution’s board of trustees.
Grenell is an openly gay diplomat and fierce ally to the president who served in high profile roles, including as acting director of national intelligence, during his first administration.
“Ric shares my vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American arts and culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA — ONLY THE BEST. RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!”
In a previous post announcing his takeover of the center and purging of Democratic board members including appointees of former President Joe Biden , Trump wrote “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured drag shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”
Board members oversee the administration of federally appropriated funds for the “operation, maintenance, and capital repair of the presidential memorial as well as its trust-funded artistic programming,” per the 2025 fiscal year budget justification to Congress. Together with previous honorees, they are responsible for selecting new Kennedy Center Honors recipients each year.
The federal government provided about $45 million in funding to the center last year, roughly a fifth of its $268 million operating budget in 2024.
On Wednesday, Grenell said on X that he was briefed by the center’s CFO and learned there is “ZERO cash on hand. And ZERO in reserves. And the deferred maintenance is a crisis.”
I was briefed today by the CFO of the Kennedy Center on its financial situation.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 13, 2025
She told me there is ZERO cash on hand. And ZERO in reserves. And the deferred maintenance is a crisis.
For the past months they’ve been digging into the DEBT RESERVES.
We must fix this great…
Congress
House Dems urge OPM not to implement anti-trans executive order
Authors were Dem. U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (Calif.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), and Gerald Connolly (Va.)

Three House Democrats including Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Mark Takano (Calif.) issued a letter on Wednesday urging the Office of Personnel Management to not implement President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
Also signing the letter were U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Rep. Gerald Connolly (Va.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
The lawmakers wrote the order “unlawfully attacks the civil rights of transgender Americans” while the White House’s corresponding memo and guidance “implements unlawful discrimination by the federal government against transgender people in the civil service and the provision of federal services.”
Specifically, they call unconstitutional the directive for agencies to “end all programs, contracts, grants, positions, documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms,
communications, statements, plans, and training that ‘inculcate’ or ‘promote’ ‘gender
ideology’—which the Executive Order defines broadly to encompass acknowledging the simple
existence of transgender people and gender identity.”
“We are deeply alarmed by these and other actions the Trump Administration has taken in its first few weeks to eliminate all government support for the transgender community, including efforts designed to enforcing the rights and support the health of transgender individuals,” the congressmen wrote.
They added, “We are also appalled by the Administration’s attempts to weaponize federal agencies to target the transgender community for discrimination and exclusion. These actions contradict federal law, Supreme Court precedent, and most importantly the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.”
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