She died at her home in Michigan at 59 — likely just days or weeks away from a Supreme Court ruling in her case. Stephens’s case is the first major transgender civil rights matter that the high court has heard, with potentially sweeping implications for transgender people nationwide seeking protections from being fired because of their gender identity. State laws do not protect them from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in more than half the states. Thomas Rost, the owner of the funeral home and her boss, has said in court proceedings that he fired Stephens “because he was no longer going to represent himself as a man. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rejected that reasoning in another case involving Gerald Bostock, a gay social worker.

Source: Washington Post May 13, 2020 10:52 UTC