Trans Hobby Lobby Employee Wins Fight To Use Women's Restroom

EAST AURORA, IL — A transgender woman in Illinois has won a court case against her employer, Hobby Lobby, after she said the company refused to let her use the women's restroom at work.

The 2nd District Appellate Court ruled Friday that Hobby Lobby had violated the Illinois Human Rights Act by prohibiting Meggan Sommerville from using the bathroom that corresponded with her gender identity. Sommerville has worked for Hobby Lobby for 23 years.

In 2013, Sommerville filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, which argued the craft and home goods store was in violation of Articles 2 and 5 of the Human Rights Act. Those articles prohibit discrimination based on gender identity in a person's place of employment.

While Sommerville was awarded $220,000 after a judge ruled in her favor, Hobby Lobby still refused Sommerville access to the women's restroom, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said Monday.

"Nobody deserves to be discriminated against or feel unsafe in their workplace due to their gender identity," Raoul said.

Sommerville has worked at Hobby Lobby's East Aurora location since the early 2000s, according to her suit. In 2007, she began to transition from male to female, and, in 2010, legally changed her name to Meggan and began dressing and introducing herself as a woman at work. As part of her transition, Sommerville formally informed her manager at Hobby Lobby that she intended to use the women's restroom at the East Aurora location, her suit said.

After the initial ruling, Hobby Lobby appealed the determination, arguing that its policy regulated bathroom access based on "sex," meaning a person's reproductive organs, rather than gender.

The attorney general's office represented the Illinois Human Rights Commission against Hobby Lobby in the appeal. Within the Illinois Human Rights Act, "sex" is defined as the status of being male or female, not necessarily pertaining to a person's reproductive biology. The appellate court reinforced the original ruling.

"Sommerville's sex is unquestionably female," the appellate court ruled, "just like the women who are permitted to use the women's bathroom."

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