Last week the Connecticut Supreme Court issued its ruling in “Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities v. Edge Fitness et al.,” finding that Edge Fitness violated Connecticut’s nondiscrimination statute by maintaining a separate workout area for women.
The Court found, as the Boston-based GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) argued in its friend-of-the-court brief, that the creation of a judge-made exception to the state nondiscrimination law would create a substantial risk that protected groups would be harmed.
As the Court explained, authorizing exceptions would permit women and transgender people to be excluded based on “the privacy interests of men or the ‘moral comfort’ of customers,” which “defeats the purpose of our state’s antidiscrimination legislation.”
“Connecticut has long been a leader on full and fair inclusion of LGBTQ people in all areas of life,” said Jennifer Levi, GLAD’s transgender rights project director. “Today’s ruling re-affirms that commitment, and ensures the state’s nondiscrimination law continues to work as intended for all those it was enacted to protect.”
GLAD’s brief was submitted by attorneys Bennett Klein, Jennifer Levi, and Gary Buseck and Kenneth Bartschi of Horton, Dowd, Bartschi & Levesque, P.C. of Hartford. The brief was also joined by Lambda Legal and Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition.
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