Federal judge refuses to accept Christian beliefs as excuse for company's anti-trans discrimination

A federal judge ruled on September 28 that a Christian-owned machine parts manufacturer in New Hampshire can’t dismiss a transgender employee’s discrimination lawsuit under a religious exemption claim. However, the judge also dismissed the employee’s claim that the company’s refusal to cover her gender-affirming healthcare illegally discriminated against her disability.

Lillian Bernier began working for Turbocam International — a company that makes machine parts for vehicles, airplanes, and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems — in June 2019. She began transitioning to a female gender in October 2020. Her doctor and mental health counselor subsequently diagnosed her with gender dysphoria, and she legally changed her name in February 2021.

A month before her name change, Turbocam changed its Harvard Pilgrim and HPI health insurance plan from one that covered gender-affirming healthcare to a self-funded plan that specifically excluded treatments for gender dysphoria, including counseling, hormone therapy, and surgery, the NH Journal reported. The new plan allowed Turbocam to grant individual exceptions to these exclusions, but the company declined to grant them for Bernier’s needs.

The exclusion caused Bernier to cancel a planned procedure and to begin paying expensive out-of-pocket costs for her continued care.

She filed a lawsuit in November 2023, alleging that the company had violated Title VII, a federal law prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sex; a state law prohibiting sex- and gender identity-based discrimination; the Affordable Care Act, a 2010 federal law that forbids healthcare discrimination in insurance plans that also receive federal funding; and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and a state law, which both count gender dysphoria as a disability that affects her workplace abilities.

In her September 28 ruling, US District Judge Landya McCafferty (an appointee of former President Barack Obama) found that Bernier’s discrimination lawsuit must proceed to trial by jury, even though Turbocam sought to dismiss it under a religious exemption claim.

The company has stated that its exclusion of Bernier’s gender-affirming healthcare coverage reflects its owner’s conviction that a person’s sex should not be changed through medical treatment. The company also said it should be allowed do so under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law that prohibits the government from heavily burdening a person’s religious freedom unless it has a very strong reason, and the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, which permits freedom of religious expression.

“Turbocam exists as a business for the purpose of honoring God, creating wealth for its employees, and supporting Christian service to God and people,” the company states in the first sentence of its “About” webpage.

“I started this company as a means of making a living while expressing the virtues of the Kingdom of God that were preached by Jesus Christ,” the company’s founder Marian B. Noronha wrote on the same webpage. “It is an experiment to honor God, create wealth for our employees, and support Christian service to God and people.”

The company is represented in court by First Liberty, a Christian legal advocacy group that often represents clients affiliated with the religious right.

The judge refused Bernier’s request to have a summary non-jury trial and judgment based on the uncontested facts of the case. McCafferty said that Noronha’s own testimony could influence a jury to find in Bernier’s favor.

“Throughout his deposition, Noronha repeatedly referred to Bernier using male pronouns. When Bernier’s attorneys informed Noronha that Bernier uses female pronouns and requests that others address (Bernier) accordingly, Noronha refused to honor Bernier’s request and continued to refer to Bernier as ‘him,’” McCafferty wrote.

“Turbocam states that it adopted the exclusion, declined to modify it, and refused to grant Bernier an exception from it based on Turbocam’s moral disapproval of Bernier’s effort to obscure or change [Bernier’s] sex,” McCafferty added. “Further, there is evidence from which a jury could find that Turbocam’s owner harbored personal animus toward Bernier because of [Bernier’s] transgender status.”

He also rejected Bernier’s claim that the denial of coverage violated the ADA. Though the ADA specifically includes gender dysphoria as a disability, the judge doubted Bernier’s claim that her dysphoria arose from an independent physical impairment, namely, her endocrine system’s inability to produce sufficient estrogen to relieve her dysphoric distress.

“The court is not persuaded,” Judge McCafferty wrote. “The fact that Bernier’s endocrine system cannot produce sufficient levels of estrogen to relieve the significant distress (Bernier) experiences does not mean that (Bernier’s) gender dysphoria itself results from an independent physical impairment,” McCafferty wrote.

Bernier is being legally represented by GLAD, a nonprofit group that fights anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.

In a statement, Bernier said, “I’m proud of my work as a machinist at Turbocam. Like everyone else, I rely on the pay and health care coverage from my job to support myself and my family. Even though I pay into the employee health plan like everyone else, I have had to pay out of pocket for my health care in addition to that, which is a stress on me and my family. I’m just asking for fair coverage and to be treated the same as my coworkers.”

“Turbocam, Harvard Pilgrim, and HPI are denying Lillian equal employment benefits because she is a transgender woman. That’s wrong and it violates the law,” said GLAD Senior Director of Litigation Ben Klein, co-counsel for Lillian Bernier. “Lillian wants the same opportunity everyone deserves to support her family, take care of her health, and be treated fairly by her employer,”

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