Supreme question: Can businesses force men to dress as men?

A brief filed this week with the U.S. Supreme Court explains that the justices must determine whether or not the transgender-rights movement is supported by a 1964 law banning discrimination based on sex.

Can a funeral home require men to dress as men, in suits and ties, and women to dress as women?

"The court must decide the public meaning of sex discrimination in 1964, the year Congress enacted Title VII," says a brief by the Alliance Defending Freedom.

ADF is defending the Detroit-area R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes and its owner, Thomas Rost. The conflict began when Anthony Stephens, a male funeral director, abruptly announcing he would begin dressing as a woman at work. The funeral home objected because of the distraction for clients.

The company offered Stephens, who now goes by Aimee, severance.

But he refused and, backed by the far-left American Civil Liberties Union, sued.

"In 1964, as today, sex discrimination meant differential treatment based on a person's biological sex, something fixed and objectively ascertained based on chromosomes and reproductive anatomy, ADF said in its brief. "It occurs when employers favor men over women, or vice versa, because of their sex. That is what Title VII forbids.

"The protected classification at issue here is 'sex.' [Anthony] Stephens concedes for purposes of argument that the word 'sex' in 1964 meant biological sex, not transgender status. ... And that is the only way the public would have understood the term at the time of Title VII's enactment."

A district judge ruled for the funeral home, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, interpreting the 1964 law to mean a person's "sex" is whatever a person determines it to be.

The ADF brief asks the Supreme Court to affirm that judges and government agencies simply can't change definitions in the law.

ADF said allowing such redefinitions at will would "cause problems in employment law, reduce bodily-privacy protections for everyone, and erode equal opportunities for women and girls, among many other consequences."

See a video on the case:

What Stephens apparently seeks, ADF said, is to eliminate women-only positions. Such a change could also affect other laws, such as Title IX, which ensures equal opportunities in education and athletics for women and girls.

"Americans should be able to rely on what the law says. Redefining 'sex' to mean 'gender identity' creates chaos, is unfair to women and girls, and puts employers in difficult situations," said ADF Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch, who served as Michigan's solicitor general from 2011-13.

"Title VII and other civil rights laws, like Title IX, are in place to protect equal opportunities for women; changing 'sex' to mean 'gender identity' undermines that."

Bursch said the employee in the case "testified that employers must treat male employees who believe themselves to be women as if they are women unless they don't 'meet the expectations' of what women '[t]ypically' look like."

"This is an impossible standard and forces employers to engage in the very stereotypes the law is supposed to condemn," he said.

ADF, arguing on behalf of the funeral homes, said, "judicially rewriting sex discrimination in Title VII will spill over into other federal laws that prohibit sex discrimination."

"It will deny women and girls fair opportunities to compete in sports, to ascend to the winner’s podium, and to receive critical scholarships. It will also require domestic-abuse shelters to allow men to sleep in the same room as female survivors of rape and violence. And it may dictate that doctors and hospitals provide transition services even in violation of their religious beliefs," ADF said.

"In sum, elected legislative- and executive-branch officials should carefully consider everyone’s interests when changing nondiscrimination legislation," the brief continues. "Courts are the branch least equipped to do so. This court should reverse the Sixth Circuit's reimagining of Title VII and direct that judgment be entered for Harris."

ADF's Gary McCaleb previously pointed out: "American business owners, especially those serving the grieving and the vulnerable, should be free to live and work consistently with their faith. The funeral home's dress code is tailored to serve those mourning the loss of a loved one."