Meet Aimee. She’s Trans and Got Fired Because of It
Trans workers face widespread discrimination. The Supreme Court may soon decide whether they’re protected.
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Until July 2013, Aimee Stephens’s boss had only ever known her as a man. That month she pulled him aside at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes in Garden City, Mich., where she worked as a funeral director, and handed him a letter that explained everything: how she’d felt imprisoned in her body; how, with help from her wife and her therapist, she’d “decided to become the person that my mind already is”; and how she’d soon “return to work as my true self,” dressed “in appropriate business attire.”
Stephens offered to answer any questions her boss, Thomas Rost, might have and enclosed her therapist’s business card in case he wanted another perspective. She says he replied, “I’ll get back to you,” and walked away. A couple of weeks later, Rost fired Stephens. In a later deposition, he said he’d done so because Stephens “was no longer going to represent himself as a man” and “wanted to dress as a woman” instead.