The Sixth Circuit has ruled that a transgender firefighter can take sex bias claims to trial. The Sixth Circuit ruled that discrimination based on a transsexual's gender nonconformity is protected by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The Sixth Circuit said the reasoning of the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins can be extended to transgenders because they experience discrimination because they do not conform to societal expectations of gender.

The Court found that: "Discrimination based on transsexualism is rooted in the insistence that sex (organs) and gender (social classification of a person as belonging to one sex or the other) coincide.

Smith v. Salem