LEGAL
Hobby Lobby Loses Illinois Trans Discrimination Case
Three-judge panel upholds ruling by Illinois Human Rights Commission
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD
The Illinois Human Rights
Commission found that
a Hobby Lobby store in
East Aurora, Illinois,
unlawfully discriminated against
a transgender employee by prohibiting
her from using the women’s
restroom at the store — and the
employee was awarded $220,000
for emotional distress and legal
fees. On August 13, a unanimous
three-judge panel of the Appellate
Court of Illinois upheld the Commission’s
ruling and the damage
award.
The appeals court was ruling on
a previously undecided question
under Illinois’ Human Rights Act:
whether an employer or a place of
public accommodation must allow
transgender employees and customers
to use restrooms consistent
with their gender identity. The
court found that the answer was
clear under the statute.
The key holding in the opinion
by Justice Mary S. Schostok was
that a transgender person whose
gender identity has been recognized
by the state is entitled to be
treated by employers and public
accommodations consistent with
their gender identity, even though
the statute makes clear that its
ban on sex discrimination in
employment allows employers to
maintain separate restroom facilities
for men and women. Rejecting
Hobby Lobby’s contention that
this express exemption from the
statute’s sex discrimination provision
authorizes Hobby Lobby’s
restroom policy, the court concluded
that Meggan Sommerville,
the transgender employee, is a
woman and entitled to be treated
as such.
Sommerville began working
for Hobby Lobby in 1998, prior to
coming out as trans. In 2007, she
began her transitioning process.
By early 2010, after medical treatment
had reconfi gured her secondary
sex characteristics, she began
to use a female name and to appear
at work dressed as a woman
and wearing makeup. Hobby Lobby
Hobby Lobby employee Meggan Sommerville was awarded $220,000 for emotional distress and legal fees after a court found that her employer unlawfully
discriminated against her.
raised no objection. After Sommerville
obtained a legal name
change, a new driver’s license, and
a Social Security Card in her new
name in 2010, she informed Hobby
Lobby that she would begin using
the women’s bathroom.
Although Hobby Lobby had
changed her personnel records to
show her new name and female
identity, it refused to allow her to
use the women’s restroom at the
store, despite the legal documents.
Even after Sommerville provided
a copy of the Human Rights Act,
Hobby Lobby refused to budge
and ordered employees to report
Sommerville if she tried to use the
women’s room. They issued her a
written warning on February 23,
2011, for entering the women’s
room.
Hobby Lobby fi nally installed a
unisex bathroom in the store in
December 2013, and told Sommerville
she could use that restroom or
the men’s room, but not the women’s
room. This was after more than
a year and a half of being excluded
from the women’s room, when the
only facility she was permitted to
use was the men’s room.
“Although Sommerville was permitted
to use the men’s bathroom
at the store,” wrote Justice Schostok,
“such use caused her anxiety,
as she had to engage in ‘defensive
maneuvers’ before entering, such
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/DANGAPRICOT
as checking and waiting to make
sure that no one else was using
the bathroom and attempting to
ensure that no one observed her
enter, due to her female appearance.”
And when she was in the men’s
room, she was concerned about
potential violence if a man came in
and saw her groomed and dressed
as a woman. “She also felt embarrassed
and humiliated by being a
woman in the men’s bathroom.”
She resorted at times to clocking
out and going to another store in
the area to use a women’s room,
but clocking out too frequently
➤ HOBBY LOBBY, continued on p.10
AUGUST 26 - SEPTEMBER 8,6 2021 | GayCityNews.com
/GayCityNews.com
