This is Aimee Stephens. In 2013, she was fired for being trans. She, alongside Don Zarda, and Gerald Bostock filed a discrimination lawsuit against their employers. Their case made its way to the Supreme Court. In the middle of the lawsuit, Aimee passed away at age 59. But today, the Supreme Court ruled in her favor. As of today, discrimination against LGBTQ people is illegal.

Listen to Gerald Bostock, one of the plaintiffs from today’s landmark Supreme Court case, reflect on the court’s verdict prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ+ employees in the workplace

From April 2017:

“Explaining it reeeeeal slowly for the non-lawyers:

Employee A, a male, is attracted to females. You’re fine with that.

Employee B, a female, is also attracted to females. You’re not fine with that and you treat her differently because of it.

Congratulations, you are illegally discriminating against Employee B based on her being female.”

Today the United States Supreme Court agreed.

“We agree that homosexuality and transgender status are distinct concepts from sex. But, as we’ve seen, discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based on sex.”

The decision agrees with the 2015 decision from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and rejects the contrary interpretation that the Trump administration repeatedly urged (despite not being a party to any of the underlying lawsuits). The full opinion is here.

Gerald Bostock who?

Tenho sérias dificuldades em desassociar, e por razões lógicas, os álbuns Thick as a Brick 2 e o Homo Erraticus, da discografia dos Jethro Tull, propriamente dita. Seja porque os músicos presentes seguiram directamente para a reformulação dos próprios Jethro Tull, seja porque o próprio Ian Anderson tentou ali algures uma certa fusão entre carreira a solo/banda, com o Ian Anderson's Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick 2, mas principalmente devido a... Gerald Bostock. Afinal, o que foi feito do puto? Bem, o TAAB2 dá-nos umas possibilidades, várias, completamente distintas entre si. Mas em Homo Erraticus, Ian decidiu que o puto, agora com 50s e tal, anos de idade, ainda vai a bibliotecas onde descobre um velho manuscrito histórico de onde decide, o Gerald, escrever novas letras para que, por sua vez, o próprio Ian pudesse transformar em música, tal como foi "feito" em Thick as a Brick (o original de 1972), na altura como Jethro Tull.

Aceito o Walk by Night (mas nunca aceitaria o "A") como Ian Anderson a solo, com experimentalismos do Vatesse e ausência de uma bateria real, uma tentativa de modernização da coisa (Under Wraps...?), aceito o Divinities, The Secret Language of Birds e o Rupi's Dance, como Ian Anderson a solo, mas não estes dois (e por extensão o Thick as a Brick - Live in Iceland, onde a banda toca os dois por inteiro, com a ajuda de um amigo e vocalista grego que faz quase na perfeição a voz do velho-novo Ian). Nunca consegui, não consigo e fico bastante contente por a história ter-me dado razão, quando Jethro Tull "reapareceram", por surpresa, com um álbum novo, The Zealot Gene!

Nestes dois casos tudo é Tull, a escrita, a sonoridade, a direção composocional e até os músicos!

Certo, não contam com a presença de Martin Barre, mas este tem felizmente, estado entretido com a sua carreira a solo, mas sinceramente, não obstante, não deixam de, para mim, ser parte integrante da discografia dos próprios Tull.

Amber Jamieson at BuzzFeed News: 

Of the three plaintiffs who secured a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court on Monday that bans workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, only one is alive to see the victory.

"I certainly don't regret joining that gay softball league," Gerald Bostock, 56, told BuzzFeed News.

In 2013, Bostock lost his job in the child welfare services department for Clayton County, Georgia, after he joined the Hotlanta Softball League.

For seven years, he's fought against that discrimination, all the way to the highest court in the land.

Now a healthcare worker at an Atlanta hospital, Bostock was in his regular Monday morning conference call with colleagues when he heard a television news presenter say a Supreme Court decision had been made in Bostock v. Clayton Co.

"My heart stopped," he said. "I promptly came off the work call and focused all of my attention on the TV screen."

At first, the SCOTUSblog was crashing, and the decision was unclear. But then someone posted part of the first page of the decision.

"Held: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII," it stated.

"When I read those very first words on the first page, I was with — and still am with — my partner. We embraced and looked at each other and said, 'We did this,'" Bostock said.

"There may have been a scream or two," he continued. "It just screams justice for all."

In a 6–3 decision on Monday, the court held that a federal law prohibiting workplace discrimination based on "sex" — Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — applied to cases involving LGBTQ workers.

The other lead plaintiffs in the case, argued by the ACLU, did not live to see the ruling. Donald Zarda, who lost his skydiving job in 2010 after telling a customer he was gay, died in a BASE jumping accident in 2014. Aimee Stephens, a trans woman who fought against losing her job in 2013 when she started wearing women's clothes, died in May.

[...]

Monday's ruling has monumental significance to LGBTQ people living in states that did not previously have workplace discrimination laws based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

"I hope they are not going to have to go to work fearful of who they are, who they love, and how do they identify," Bostock said.