For Immediate Release
June 18, 2020
Contact: Director of Communications Ásgeir Sigfússon, sigfusson@afsa.org

Washington, D.C. – AFSA welcomes the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia declaring that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender employees from workplace discrimination. AFSA believes in equal civil rights for all Americans and this brings us a step closer to that goal.

Our diplomatic corps should be representative of the melting pot that is our nation, and that is impossible without the contributions of LGBTIQ members of the Foreign Service. Until Monday’s decision, those colleagues had been uniformly protected only by Executive Orders 13087 and 13672. Their workplace protections are now enshrined in law. This is progress that deserves to be lauded.

While our history on this is not perfect, AFSA is proud to be a longtime supporter of LGBTIQ rights in the Foreign Service. As an association, we have longstanding ties with glifaa, the LGBTIQ employee affinity group in the foreign affairs agencies. In 2014, AFSA General Counsel Sharon Papp received glifaa’s Equality Award in recognition of her, and AFSA’s, strong allyship.

We congratulate our LGBTIQ members and colleagues on this landmark victory.

AFSA, the voice of the Foreign Service, is the professional association and labor union of the U.S. Foreign Service. Founded in 1924, AFSA represents 31,000 active and retired Foreign Service employees at the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, Foreign Commercial Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.