The Human Rights Campaign today filed a “friend of the court” brief signed by 59 major US companies supporting transgender student Gavin Grimm in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Grimm, a transgender boy, filed suit against the school board alleging it violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by denying him use of the boy’s restroom.

“These companies are sending a powerful message to transgender children and their families that America’s leading businesses have their backs,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Across the country, corporate leaders are speaking out because they know attacking transgender youth isn’t just shameful — it also puts the families of their employees and customers at risk. Transgender students like Gavin are entitled to the full protection of the law, and must be affirmed, respected and protected in the classroom and beyond.”

Leading American businesses have long expressed a commitment to LGBTQ diversity and inclusion in their workforces as evidenced by inclusive policies, practices and benefits. Businesses realize being inclusive is not only the right thing to do — it just makes good business sense as well. Companies that are inclusive of LGBTQ people and employees with LGBTQ family members are able to attract and retain the best and brightest across a wide spectrum of diversity, reap the benefits from increased engagement and productivity, and actively participate in the vibrant LGBTQ consumer marketplace.

Having built inclusive workplaces for their transgender employees or even transgender dependents of employees, companies have a vested interest in the legal landscape in which those employees and their dependents live, work or go to school.

The 59 companies, representing over 1.6 million employees and $670 billion in revenue, signing the brief are:

Affirm, Inc.; Airbnb, Inc.; Akamai Technologies, Inc.; Amazon.com, Inc.; Apple; AppNexus Inc.; Asana, Inc.; Bloomberg L.P.; Box, Inc.; Codecademy; Credo Mobile, Inc.; Dropbox, Inc.; eBay Inc.; Fastly, Inc.; Flipboard, Inc.; General Assembly Space, Inc.; GitHub, Inc.; IBM Corporation; Indiegogo, Inc.; Intel Corporation; Kaiser Permanente; Kickstarter, PBC; Knotel, Inc.; Linden Lab; LinkedIn Corporation; MAC Cosmetics Inc.; Mapbox, Inc.; Marin Software Incorporated; MassMutual Life Insurance Company; Meetup, Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams; MongoDB Inc.; NetApp, Inc.; Next Fifteen Communications Corp; Nextdoor.com, Inc.; NIO; Pandora Media, Inc.; PayPal Holdings, Inc.; Postmates Inc.; Replacements, Ltd.; RetailMeNot, Inc.; Salesforce.com, Inc.; Shutterstock, Inc.; Slack Technologies, Inc.; Spotify USA Inc.; SugarCRM Inc.; The OutCast Agency; The Gap, Inc.; Tumblr, Inc.; Twilio Inc.; Twitter Inc.; Warby Parker; Weebly, Inc.; Williams-Sonoma, Inc.; Xerox Corporation; Yahoo! Inc.; Yelp Inc.; and Zendesk, Inc.