Air bnb, Apple, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Twitter are a few of major tech companies and brands that have officially signed an amicus brief by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in support of a Supreme Court case regarding protections for transgender students.
The “friend of the court” brief argues in favor of a lawsuit brought by transgender student Gavin Grimm, who alleged that Gloucester County School Board violated his Title IX rights by not letting him use the boys’ restroom at his school.
The Supreme Court’s decision in this case could have far-reaching consequences for transgender students across the nation.
“These companies are sending a powerful message to transgender children and their families that America’s leading businesses have their backs,” HRC President Chad Griffin explained in a release. “Across the country, corporate leaders are speaking out because they know attacking transgender youth isn’t just shameful — it also puts the families of their employees and customers at risk. Transgender students like Gavin are entitled to the full protection of the law, and must be affirmed, respected and protected in the classroom and beyond.”
The 53 companies, representing over 1.3 million employees and $613 billion in revenue, signing the brief are:
Affirm, Inc., Airbnb, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., Apple, Asana, Inc., Box, Inc., Codecademy, Credo Mobile, Inc., Dropbox, Inc., eBay Inc., Etsy, Fastly, Inc., Flipboard, Inc., Gap Inc., General Assembly, GitHub, Inc., IBM, Intel Corporation, Kickstarter, PBC, Knotel, Inc., LinkedIn, Lyft, M Booth, MAC Cosmetics Inc., Mapbox, Inc., Marin Software Incorporated, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, Microsoft Corporation, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, MongoDB Inc., NetApp, Inc., Next Fifteen Communications Corporation, Nextdoor, Pandora Media, Inc., PayPal Holdings, Inc., Postmates Inc., Replacements, Ltd., RetailMeNot, Inc., Salesforce, Shutterstock, Inc., Slack Technologies, Inc., Spotify, The OutCast Agency, The WhiteWave Foods Company, Tumblr, Inc., Twilio Inc., Twitter Inc., Udacity, Inc., Warby Parker, Williams-Sonoma, Inc., Yahoo! Inc., Yelp Inc., Zendesk, Inc.
“Across the country, businesses understand that it is not only morally imperative to support the rights of the transgender community, but that it makes good business sense as well,” Deena Fidas, Director of the HRC’s Workplace Equality Program told DIVERGE. “Businesses thrive when they can recruit and retain employees state to state without the barriers of discriminatory laws. By signing onto this brief, these major employers are able to tell the transgender community that they’ve got their back.”
