Sophia Serrao
Thu, 08/25/2022
In a split decision, the Fourth Circuit ruled in Williams v. Kincaid that gender dysphoria is a disability protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Americans with Disabilities Act protects people from disability discrimination in employment, public accommodations, and transportation.
In this newly revived case, a transgender Virginia woman sued a Fairfax County, several of its officers, and jail personnel from a Virginia detention center over the decision to move her into men’s housing after learning she was transgender. The move from the women’s facility to the men’s facility caused her to experience delays in her medical treatment for her gender dysphoria and caused her to face misgendering and harassment from both the inmates and prison deputies.
However, the ADA specifically excludes “gender identity disorder” from the disabilities protected by the law. The lower court dismissed Williams’ case on the grounds that gender dysphoria is a “gender identity disorder,” excluded from the ADA. Williams argued that gender dysphoria is not a gender identity disorder and therefore qualified as a disability under the ADA. Gender dysphoria, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, is a clinically significant distress or impairment by some who experience an incongruence between their gender identity and their assigned sex. To the contrary, “gender identity disorder,” was defined by the APA as a condition of identifying with a different gender, until the APA removed the term from its mental health guide. The majority opinion found these definitions to be clearly different – gender dysphoria focuses on the clinically significant mental distress, rather than solely on gender identification, therefore being transgender does not automatically diagnose someone with gender dysphoria. According to the majority, the ADA excludes from its protection “anything falling within the plain meaning of ‘gender identity disorders,’ as the term was understood at time of enactment… But nothing in the ADA, then or now, compels the conclusion that gender dysphoria constitutes a ‘gender identity disorder’ excluded from ADA protection.”
The decision allows transgender people who experience gender dysphoria and are under the Fourth Circuit’s jurisdiction – Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina – to bring a lawsuit alleging they faced disability discrimination based on their gender dysphoria.
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