The Illinois Second District Appellate Court unanimously ruled on Friday that Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. violated the law in Illinois violated a transgender employee's right to use its women's bathroom. Judges of the court ruled that the transgender employee, who worked for the retail company for almost 23 years, was "unquestionably female, just like the women who are permitted to use the women's bathroom."
According to Forbes, the court's decision was a landmark ruling because it is one of first impression, which means that this legal issue has never been decided by the governing jurisdiction. Meggan Sommerville, the transgender employee at the center of the case, said, "This is a precedent setting case in Illinois, because the Human Rights Act has never been tested in this way in Illinois, and actually in the country."
Sommerville, who is now 51 years old, said that the court "stuck to the law" and that for him it was "as much of a victory as anything else; That the law in Illinois is so clear that even conservative judges couldn't go any other way with it."
According to Bloomberg, Sommerville's case dates back to 2013, when he first filed a complaint with the Illinois Human Rights Commission after she was disciplined by Hobby Lobby for using the women's bathroom at the Aurora store. In 2019, the commission ruled that the company policy was unlawful.
The Second District's decision on Friday decided that Hobby Lobby's bathroom ban on transgender women forced Sommerville to limit his fluid intake as to avoid using the men's bathroom, which caused him health problems and nightmares about being assaulted and mocked by men.
During litigation, Hobby Lobby challenged Sommeville to produce a birth certificate that claims he is female or had undergone a genital surgery. Justice Mary Seminara-Schostok wrote that "Hobby Lobby's argument that female status is somehow immutable is belied not only by the Act but also by its own conduct."
Illinois is seeing more legislation in support of the transgender community. In July, Gov. JB Pritzker signed several measures to advance the rights of the LGBT community in the state, ABC 7 reported. Such measures include legislation to expand infertility treatment coverage for same-sex couples, another enables couples who are getting married to choose gender-neutral certificates or for those who are married, to have their certificates updated to reflect their preferred gender identity, while another measure repeals the law that made HIV transmission a crime.
Gov. Pritzker said that he signed the bills into law to "advance Illinoisans' ability to live their fullest lives as their truest selves." He added, "In our continued efforts to shape a safer and more inclusive Illinois, my administration is on a mission to lift up and empower those who too often have been overlooked or forgotten."
Under the governor's leadership, the state was also able to provide financial aid to transgender students, create a better, more inclusive curriculum for schools in the state, and expanded Medicaid to cover sex-change surgery among others.
