VICTORY!

You all remember the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision to allow Hobby Lobby not cover insurance for birth control; well they just got slammed in Indiana.

Trans woman wins decision against Hobby Lobby
Windy City Times
By Gretchen Rachel Hammond
2015-10-04

Transgender activist Meggan Sommerville has been given the go-ahead to announce a significant step forward in her five-year-long battle against Hobby Lobby to be allowed the basic dignity of being able to use the restroom that matches her gender at her Aurora, Illinois, place of employment.
A May 15 ruling in the case by State of Illinois Human Right Commission Administrative Law Judge William J. Borah was in favor of Sommerville.

Due to the ongoing litigation, she had kept the decision under wraps but, on Oct. 3, granted Windy City Times permission to publish Borah's decision, which included several key statements regarding Hobby Lobby's violation if the Illinois Human Rights Act.
[…]
Sommerville's bosses made it clear to her that she was not to use the female restroom either as an employee or as a customer. When she tried to use that facility off the clock, she was written up. "They don't care whether I'm a customer or not," she said. "I am not allowed to use the women's restroom period."

Sommerville's 2012 complaint filed with the Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) was dismissed. Her case was subsequently taken on by attorneys Katherine Eder and Jacob Meister of the Chicago-based firm Jacob Meister & Associates.

In his decision, Borah noted Hobby Lobby's "concern about a woman employee expressing 'discomfort' with [Sommerville] being present in the women's restroom."

"However, a co-worker's discomfort cannot justify discriminatory terms and conditions of employment," Borah wrote.

He added that Hobby Lobby's 2014 construction of "a 'unisex' single use restroom for [Sommerville] only segregates her and perpetuates different treatment contrary to the [Illinois Human Rights] Act."

Borah also stated that that "nothing in the Act makes any surgical procedure a prerequisite for its protection of sexual related identity. Therefore [Hobby Lobby's] unilateral surgical requirement is untenable."

The first thing that I like about the decision was "However, a co-worker's discomfort cannot justify discriminatory terms and conditions of employment." How many times have we heard people complain about being made uncomfortable having a trans person share the bathroom, well now there is precedent against using that argument. And the second thing is that bathroom use doesn’t depend upon surgery.

But right now Hobby Lobby is thumbing their nose at the decision.

Despite that decision, Hobby Lobby is still enforcing its policy.

What will Hobby Lobby next move?