The Shower’s Return: A Serial Essay on the LGBT Title VII Sex Discrimination Cases, Parts I to VI

Abstract

“The Shower’s Return”--a series of six separately published papers, all combined here--supplies a detailed account of, and engagement with, important aspects of what transpired during the Supreme Court phase of the litigation in the LGBT Title VII sex discrimination cases. It traces the role that anti-trans, anti-gay, and sexist fantasies involving queer intruders in ladies’ showers and locker rooms played in the cases as the cases played out. Through an argument that follows and critically engages these fantasies and the cultural logics that subtend and power them, “The Shower’s Return” provides a deep context for understanding active dangers behind the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, holding that anti-gay and anti-trans discrimination are forms of prohibited sex discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act—dangers that may yet, in different ways, return, notwithstanding Bostock’s results.

Keywords: Title VII, sex discrimination, lesbian and gays rights, transgender rights, Bostock, Zarda, Stephens, Harris Funeral Homes, employment discrimination, sex difference, bathrooms, showers, locker rooms, cultural archive, Kulturkampf

JEL Classification: K00, K10, K19, K20, K30, K36, K39, K40, Z12, Z18