The Americans with Disabilities Act does not exclude gender dysphoria from its definition of disability, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held Tuesday in a decision observers say could have implications in the employment law space (Williams v. Kincaid, No. 21-2030 (4th Cir. Aug. 16, 2022)).
The case involved a transgender woman with gender dysphoria who spent six months incarcerated in a Virginia prison. The plaintiff alleged that, during her incarceration, she experienced delays in medical treatment for her gender dysphoria, as well as harassment and persistent and intentional misgendering by prison staff, which she argued violated of state and federal statutes, including the ADA.
The respondents countered, arguing that gender dysphoria fell under a section of the ADA that describes terms excluded from its disability definition. Specifically, Section 12211 of the law provides that “gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments” are not considered a disability for the purposes of the law.
The district court agreed in its decision that this section of the law applied to the plaintiff’s gender dysphoria and dismissed the case.
But the 4th Circuit reversed, holding that at the time of the ADA’s enactment, “the medical community did not acknowledge gender dysphoria either as an independent diagnosis or as a subset of any other condition.” The court also noted that the American Psychiatric Association later removed the term “gender identity disorder”...
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