Aimee Stephens’s battle isn’t over. The 57-year-old former funeral home director has been in a legal battle for years, since, she says, she was fired from her Detroit-area job shortly after she told her boss in 2013 she was a transgender woman and would start dressing as such. After her termination, Stephens says, she struggled to find a job — and once she got one as an autopsy technician in a Detroit hospital, her health began deteriorating. Stephens now has kidney failure, requiring her to undergo dialysis three times a week, and suffers from respiratory issues.
After she was fired from her job, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the funeral home in 2014 on her behalf — and the ensuing legal battle that could ultimately make its way to the Supreme Court by its next term.
“Just waiting for a positive outcome on this case is what really keeps me going day after day,” Stephens tells TIME “It’s not just for myself, but it’s also for all the other trans people in the world. Not just trans people, but also for all LGBTQ+ people.”
She got her first victory in court in March when a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in her favor, joining several other courts in setting a precedent for the questions of whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects transgender workers from discrimination and whether religious freedom could provide employers exemption from this law.
And while Stephens and her lawyers were expecting legal hiccups, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announcement last week that he was retiring from the Supreme Court at the end of the month puts Stephens’s case and other future LGBTQ-related cases in a precarious place, lawyers and advocates tell TIME. Kennedy was a crucial swing vote, particularly when it came LGBTQ rights-related cases — and most notably cast the deciding vote for the landmark 2015 decision that made same sex-marriage legal in the U.S.
“I wish he could’ve waited several years to retire, but, you know, what happened to me hurt. And it was a lot,” Stephens says. “It was wrong, and I’m hopeful that anyone, including a new Supreme Court justice, would see that and act accordingly.”
Stephens’ years-long journey shows a glimpse of what many LGBTQ individuals face — or could face — without federal laws protecting them from workplace discrimination. People who identify as gay or transgender can be fired in the majority of states in the U.S. — only 21 states and Washington, D.C., have laws that prohibit discrimination due to sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Read the full story at Time Magazine
