ERA NOW!! FIST SUPPORTS EME’S LAWSUIT

Even though the Equal Rights Amendment was ratified by the required 38th state on January 15, 2020, the Trump Administration’s justice department is holding it up from being recorded by the archivist so it can become part of the U. S. Constitution. To quote EME’s statement:

The lawsuit filed in January in U.S. District Court in Boston argues that congressionally imposed deadlines for states to ratify the ERA are unconstitutional and called on the courts to compel the Archivist of the United States to officially record ERA as the 28th amendment to the Constitution. The complaint also calls on the courts to reject any attempts by states to rescind their prior ratifications of the ERA. It is the first lawsuit regarding the newly ratified ERA to arrive in court, and the only ERA lawsuit brought entirely by women.

We at Feminists in Struggle support the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment because women are discriminated against because of our sex.  We endure sexual assault, harassment, domestic abuse, job discrimination, and unequal pay simply due to being female, We are the only group that is not recognized in the federal constitution, and the only remedy to all of the assaults on women’s reproductive rights, bodily sovereignty, agency, freedom, and dignity is to record the ratification of the ERA into the U. S. Constitution so that it can finally become the law of the land.

We fully support Equal Means Equal’s Amicus Brief and the lawsuit filed in January calling on the courts to compel the archivist to officially record the ERA as the 28th amendment to the Constitution.  We need to finish the job of establishing equality under the law by finally ratifying the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) and CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women).

Supreme Court Ruling: Cause for Celebration and Concern

On June 15, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a surprise 6 to 3 decision written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch in three cases interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banning sex discrimination in employment, The first two cases involved gay men who lost their jobs for being gay (Bostock vs. Clayton County, Georgia, and Altitude Express Inc. v Zarda) and the third involved a transgender-identified male who was fired upon announcing he was “transitioning” and would be returning to work in women’s garb (Harris Funeral Homes vs. EEOC.).

First the good news. The Court held that discrimination based on homosexuality was covered under Title VII as a form of sex discrimination since it is intrinsically tied to biological sex. This means that after many decades of struggle, lesbians and gay men finally now have federal civil rights protection against job discrimination. Also, the interpretation of Title VII is so broad that sex-based dress and grooming codes and discrimination based on all forms of gender non-conformity may be successfully challenged in the future, something important to feminists.

The decision in the Harris case is far more problematic for feminists concerned abut the maintenance of sex-based rights. True, Judge Gorsuch did not fully embrace transgender ideology,; he did not deny the existence of sex; he didn’t use the popular expression among transactivists, “assigned at birth”, and instead, referred to “observed sex at birth.”, But he did refer to Stephens as “she” and find transgender status to be a form of sex discrimination.

Though the Court limited its ruling to firing someone based on homosexual and transgender status, and stated that the Court was not ruling on single sex bathrooms and changing rooms, we do indeed have to worry about the future.  Title VII law has a strong influence on the interpretation of Title IX and other Civil rights statutes. Even getting the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution as currently written will be a double edged sword, since sex and transgender status are now merged. Fighting for legislation that spells out sex-based rights to female-only spaces and programs, as FIST did in its proposed Feminist Amendments to the Equality Act, has become in light of this decision, more important than ever.

FIST Forum: “Defending Women-only Spaces for Victims of Male Violence” with Speakers from Vancouver Rape Relief, Sun. June 28th

Please join us for our first FIST Forum on Zoom on Sunday June 28th at 1:00 P.M., Pacific Time, with special guests from Vancouver Rape Relief on the important topic of defending women’s spaces for victims of male violence. This is a participatory event with lots of time for questions and discussion.

Please buy your tickets on Eventbrite at: Defending Women’s Spaces for Victims of Male Violence and we will send you the Zoom link.  Tickets are only $5 plus a service charge, funds split between VRR and FIST.

The event is co-sponsored by the Chicago Feminist Salon and the San Diego Feminist Organizing Project.