 Remember when Donald Trump was first elected and all of his supporters tried to assure all of us that he definitely was an anti-LGBTQ plus even after he chose Mike Pence as his running mate? Because the logic was how could he be anti-gay or anti-trends if he held up a pride flag? So I mean the logic is absolutely sound. I don't know how you can argue against that but look, I just want to hear from those same people who made that argument then and hear what they have to say now after he has been president for multiple years and has since banned transgender Americans from serving in the military. And on top of that, his administration is now trying to make it legal for businesses to fire people from the LGBTQ plus community. And the scope of this discrimination that he wants to make legal is so broad that it would even potentially harm straight and cis people. Literally. Now in 2019, there are still a number of states where you actually can legally be fired from your job specifically on the basis of sexual orientation and or gender identity. And about five years ago, a woman named Amy Stevens had that happen to her. She was fired after she came out to her employer as trans and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decided to sue her employer on her behalf and her case has now made it all the way to the Supreme Court. And now this case involving Amy Stevens and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also includes two gay men who were fired from their jobs specifically because they're gay. Now for more details on this case, we go to NBC News' Chase Strange who reports the question presented in Amy's case is relatively straightforward. Is it unlawful sex discrimination under Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act to fire someone because that person is transgender? Before the 2016 presidential election, the government had nearly universally said yes. But as of Friday, the United States, which initially brought the case through the EEOC, has officially switched sides. The Trump administration has weighed in to encourage the court to permit employers to fire an employee for being trans. Now this isn't particularly surprising. Of course this is the stance that Donald Trump's administration would take because he's a piece of shit, shocker. But what really is unique about this story as I alluded to earlier is the level of zealotry, the extent to which he wants to allow discrimination. This case continues saying, as a measure of how far the Trump administration is willing to go to make sure that transgender people have no protection from discrimination under federal law, take just one small section of their brief filed with the Supreme Court on Friday. Quote, sex stereotyping by itself is not a Title 7 violation. In other words, Trump's lawyers are arguing that the section of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits employers from discriminating because of sex does not prohibit employers from discriminating on the basis of stereotypes related to sex. That is a wholesale rejection of major Supreme Court precedent and invites the court to wipe out protections that people have relied on for decades. And a ruling in their favor could drastically change workplace protections for all women, whether or not they are LGBTQ and anyone who does not conform to the administration's preferred gender norms. That could include men with long hair and women with short hair, men who are primary caretakers of children or parents, women who wear pants and women who work outside the home or are primary breadwinners. It's almost as if the Trump administration is arguing that if trans people might get protected from employment discrimination, then it is best that there be no protections for anyone, which actually may be their end game. So let's just pause for a moment and think about the implications of this and how broad this is. Trump wants transgender people to be discriminated against so bad that he's willing to even allow cisgender people and straight people to be caught up in said discrimination, meaning if you are a straight male but you're a little bit too effeminate, well, you could be fired by your employer if they are anti-gay and they think that you're gay or maybe you're just not straight enough. If you're a woman who's a little bit too manly, maybe you cut your hair short, you have a deeper voice and you wear pants, well, it doesn't matter if you're cis and straight and you have a husband, you could be caught up in this type of discrimination if Trump gets his way. I mean, this is absolutely madness. It's a classic case of cutting off your nose despite your face or however that saying goes. It's preposterous, first of all, for individuals to think it's acceptable for someone to be fired on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, that alone makes you a bad person. Discrimination is unacceptable. We've already had this civil rights battle in this country before. Why are we rehashing it? Why haven't we all collectively learned from history? But I mean, to go a step further and say, you know what, I'm so hellbent on allowing for discrimination against trans people that, you know, I would even permit discrimination against cisgender people and straight people if they don't abide by gender norms as dictated by their employer, then that's just a new level of insanity. But I mean, this is what happens when you elect Republicans. It doesn't matter how reformed they say they are. It doesn't matter that at the Republican National Convention, he claimed that he would stand up for LGBTQ rights. Republicans are always going to take the side of history that's wrong. They're always going to side with bigots and favor oppression because that's what they've done historically. It's what conservatism is. It's to preserve the status quo. That's the whole point of conservatism. You support tradition. You favor, you know, traditional values. That's what conservatism is. That's the crux of conservatism. So of course, this is what we should expect from them. This is why to the people who tried to delude themselves into thinking that Donald Trump would not be anti-LGBTQ as all of his predecessors were, to the people who are LGBTQ who support Donald Trump, it's time for you to wake up. It's time for you to understand that the Republican Party is just not into you. They hate gay and trans people so much that they are willing to allow cisgender and straight people to be discriminated against just so that way we can make sure that we're able to punish members of the LGBTQ plus community. And I wouldn't be as angered about this if, you know, Donald Trump had just said we're going to take the opposite side that the government had previously taken because that's what you expect. But what makes this situation awful is that there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court who could very well say, I know what the Constitution says, but I'm going to interpret it in this way that would allow for discrimination because we're actually going to contend that not allowing discrimination against gay and trans people is actually discrimination against religious people because if you have a particular religious ideology that says that gay people and trans people are evil, then it's bigoted to not let them discriminate. So you can justify whatever conclusion makes you feel better. It doesn't matter if you are a Supreme Court justice who's supposed to objectively interpret the law. It doesn't matter. Conservatives hold a majority on the Supreme Court so they could very well say, you know what, we agree with Donald Trump. Employers should be able to discriminate against members of the LGBTQ plus community. So we're going to leave that up to the states and allow this discrimination to continue. We're not going to strike it down. And the fact that that's even plausible in 2019, it shows the progress. It doesn't just follow, you know, a straight line. Sometimes you take a step forward, but two steps back. That's just the way it is, you know, when it comes to civil rights and civil liberties, there's never an end. It's always a constant battle. And I think that seeing what Donald Trump has been doing, it proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.