On October 8, the Supreme Court heard a case with sweeping implications for anyone who does not conform to outdated gender stereotypes. In its brief, the Trump administration argued that a funeral home was justified in firing an employee, Aimee Stephens, just because she is transgender. Although the case centers on transgender rights, Trump’s lawyers took a position that would diminish the rights of cisgender women and girls too — by allowing employers to force all employees to dress and behave in accordance with archaic gender norms and punish them if they do not.

If this sounds like the stuff of a Margaret Atwood novel, rather than a realistic scenario in 2019, unfortunately it’s all too real. The brief should set off alarm bells for everyone who cares about gender equality.

ACLU client Aimee Stephens Charles William Kelly

For decades, courts have recognized that employers cannot force employees to comport with stereotypes about how men or women should look or behave. In a 1989 Supreme Court case, an employer told a woman her “professional” problems would be solved if only she would “walk more femininely, talk more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry.” The Supreme Court held that the employer violated the federal law that prohibits employment discrimination, Title VII, by passing her up for partnership because she did not act or dress in a manner the other partners deemed appropriate for a woman.

Ignoring this longstanding precedent, the Trump administration argued in its brief that employers can insist that men and women dress in a manner that aligns with stereotypical understandings of gender. Title VII, Trump’s lawyers claim, permits employers to force women to conform to sex stereotypes so long as they also force men to conform to parallel sex stereotypes. Under this logic, an employer is off the hook for forcing women to wear skirts so long as it prohibits men from doing so.

Unfortunately, some employers and schools are eager to embrace precisely these sorts of sex-specific rules that are steeped in retrograde stereotypes. My colleagues in the ACLU Women’s Rights Project and I represent three girls who attend a North Carolina public charter school that required girls to wear skirts. The school allowed boys to wear pants but argued that allowing girls to do so would undermine its goal of promoting “chivalry” and “mutual respect between boys and girls.”

Earlier this year, we secured a federal court ruling that the skirts requirement violated the Equal Protection Clause. The court recognized that forcing girls to dress in a traditionally feminine manner had no effect on promoting respect between students and noted that for several decades it has been socially acceptable for girls and women to wear pants.

One of the ACLU's North Carolina clients

Thanks to our clients’ bravery in speaking out, girls at the school now have the freedom to walk to school in the winter without freezing-cold legs, or to swing on the monkey bars during recess without risking showing their underwear. Our clients feel more at ease and more able to concentrate during class in pants. Yet if the Trump administration has its way, schools and employers can soon force women and girls to wear stereotypically “feminine” clothing like skirts and dresses.

We all need to open our eyes and realize that the same gender stereotypes that harm transgender employees and students harm all of us. It’s far past time for cisgender allies to join the LGBTQ+ community in condemning the Trump administration’s hateful position.

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: How to Help Transgender People Fight the Trump Administration