Elizabeth Weise

USATODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Fifty-three companies mostly in tech, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Lyft and eBay, signed an amicus brief in support of a major transgender rights case filed on Thursday.

Missing: Google, Uber and Facebook.

The suit involves Gavin Grimm, a Virginia high school student who sued to be able to use the bathrooms in his school that corresponds to his chosen gender.

53 mostly tech companies on trans rights brief

The tech companies' friend of the court brief was one of several filed Thursday, including those from schools, teachers, law enforcement, city governments and 196 members of Congress.

The tech-heavy brief was filed by the Human Rights Campaign. Some of the non-tech companies included were the clothing store the Gap, WhiteWave Foods, a vegetarian food and beverage company and kitchenware store William-Sonoma, though of course like all businesses today they have strong online elements.

Both Grimm's lawyers and his Virginia school district, which blocked him from using the boys' bathroom, on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to hear the case despite a change in the federal government's position on the issue.

Last week the Trump administration withdrew Obama-era guidelines instructing school districts to let transgender students use bathrooms corresponding to their chosen gender.

Both sides urge Supreme Court to hear transgender case

Technology companies have been strong backers of lesbian and gay rights and now for the transgender community, partly due to roots in the politically liberal San Francisco Bay Area and also because they're trying appeal to a younger, coastal workforce that supports expanded rights for the LGBTQ community.

This is not the first time tech companies have taken a political stance for the LGBT community. Many, including Google, Apple and Microsoft, protested a sweeping anti-LGBT law passed by North Carolina in 2016, for example.

Google, Apple, Facebook, others oppose N.C. law

The tech world was if anything even more strong in support of the Grimm case.

"Every child deserves an opportunity to succeed free of fear, anxiety, and threats of discrimination. Salesforce strongly believes that all students, including transgender students, should be treated as equals, and we disagree with any effort to limit their rights. Equality for all," Salesforce said in a statement.

Software development company GitHub said it was "dedicated to the creation of safe, inclusive spaces and communities — both in the digital world and in the real world."

PayPal said inclusion and equality were at the core of its values.

"We seek to defend against actions that violate our values, which is why we have signed this amicus brief with other like-minded companies seeking to uphold critical protections against discrimination," its statement read.