More on the Diane Schroer case

I've written briefly on this issue before. To recap, a former US Army colonel applied for a position with the Library of Congress as a terrorism analyst. He was given the job, but the offer was rescinded when the LOC was made aware that the colonel would be reporting to work as "Diane", not as "Dave". Reason's Julian Sanchez has more:

"Initially my reaction was to walk away from it," says Schroer. "If they didn't want me working there, it was probably not a good place to be working. But the more I thought about it, the more it just seemed not right. I had invested 26 years of my life in government service, fairly arduous at some points, and at the same time in those 26 years the government had invested an awful lot in me." In June, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Schroer filed a sex discrimination suit against the Library.

ACLU attorney Sharon McGowan explains that they plan to make a two-pronged argument: One hinges on the Title VII federal ban on sex discrimination. In 1989, in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the Supreme Court ruled that discrimination according to gender stereotype — in that case, the refusal to promote a woman who didn't act "feminine enough" — fell within the scope of sex discrimination. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals last year built on that ruling in Smith v. City of Salem to cover a transgendered firefighter who had been suspended after announcing his intention to become a woman.

It would seem, especially in a government position, that the apparent gender of the employee should matter not at all. I'm not surprised that the ACLU has had to get involved . . . sometimes governments are the last employers to "get it" with social change.

If Schroer's account of events is accurate, her case should be a slam dunk: If Dave was good enough for the government, so should Diane be. If her supervisor wouldn't have caviled at an employee born a woman presenting herself as one on the job, that ought not to change just because Diane had the misfortune to be born with the wrong set of biological equipment. But, as Post observes, courts are ingenious at finding ways to circumvent the radical implications of gender equality when it means overturning traditional notions of femininity and masculinity.

Schroer, for her part, says she'd still like the job. A wise court would give it to her. As renewed attacks raise the stakes in the war on terror, the government could badly use a few good ex-men.

Couldn't have said it better myself.