WoLF Files Amicus Brief In Support of Women Fired From Alaska Airlines Over Opposition to Gender Identity Law
WoLF is filing a slew of briefs in high courts this autumn. Any or all of them could be precedent-setting, making this a key moment in the fight for women’s sex-based rights. We filed for Skrmetti on Tuesday to protect vulnerable children. Yesterday, WoLF filed an amicus brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Brown v. Alaska Airlines, which centers around two women fired for expressing their opposition to the Equality Act.
Case Background
In 2021, Alaska Airlines posted an article to an internal employee message board announcing the company’s support for the Equality Act and soliciting employee feedback. Two flight attendants, Marli Brown and Lacey Smith, responded with concern for, among other things, the impact of the proposed law on women’s rights. The bill would redefine sex under federal civil rights law to include "gender identity," and requires private and public entities to allow men to access women's spaces if they claim to identify as women.
Marli wrote (in part):
“The Equality act would affect everything from girls’ and women’s showers and locker rooms to women’s shelters and women’s prisons, endangering safety and diminishing privacy. Giving people blanket permission to enter private spaces for the opposite sex enables sexual predators to exploit the rules and gain easy access to victims.”
Lacey wrote, simply, “As a company, do you think it’s possible to regulate morality?”
Marli and Lacey were Association of Flight Attendants union members, but the representative who was supposed to defend them to the company was only concerned with shutting them up. Terry Taylor wrote: “Can we PLEASE get someone to shut down comments, or put Marli and Lacey in a burlap bag and drop them in a well.”
Both comments were removed from the forum, and both women were soon fired.
The women sued the airline and the union, citing religious discrimination. The District Court ruled against the women in a decision that called Marli’s comment about her concerns for women’s rights and safety “histrionic.”
WoLF Brings Radical Feminist Arguments
Amicus briefs are an opportunity for groups or individuals who are not part of a case to weigh in with their arguments or provide additional context. Although Marli and Lacey’s legal claims largely center on religious discrimination, WoLF’s brief adds an important feminist context to this case.
1. Marli Brown’s Statement About Single-Sex Spaces Under The Equality Act Is True
“The Equality Act does apply to “showers and locker rooms” and “women’s shelters and women’s prisons.” It would require that spaces previously reserved for women and girls be made accessible to males who identify as transgender or nonbinary… The bill puts no objective requirements on males seeking access to these spaces beyond their personal attestation that the space is “in accordance with their gender identity.” Id. There are no requirements for surgery, hormones, legal sex change, gender dysphoria, “social transitioning,” use of feminine pronouns or names, nor any requirement that they even identify as female”
2. Women Raising Valid Concern About Their Own Safety And Privacy Is Not Harassment
“The Equality Act notwithstanding, the issue of whether or not a restroom, locker room, or other private space designated for female employees may also be used by male employees is an issue of privacy and safety in the workplace. Female employees who must share single-sex intimate spaces with biological males may feel unsafe, anxious, and embarrassed having to dress and undress, shower, and attend to bodily needs in close proximity and view of the opposite sex. They may experience sexual harassment, threats and intimidation, be subject to intentional voyeurism and indecent exposure. They are at risk of physical or sexual assault.”
3. Concern About Male Access To Women’s Spaces Is Not “Anti-LGBT”
“Finding that legacy groups such as GLAAD or the National Center for Lesbian Rights have watered down or moved their focus entirely, new groups have been created by LGB communities to preserve and fight for the rights of people who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual - and many of them are very skeptical of policies that endanger women and girls… The LGB Alliance does not support the Equality Act as written due, in part, to the provisions that gut protections for single-sex spaces. Lesbians and bisexual women are disproportionately impacted by the loss of certain female-only spaces, including prisons and jails: up to 33% of women in prison are lesbian or bisexual, compared to only 3.4% of the general population.”
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