Aimee Stephens, seated center, and her wife Donna Stephens, in pink, listen during a news conference outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019. Aimee Stephens lost her job when she told Thomas Rost, owner of the Detroit-area R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, that she had struggled with gender identity issues almost her whole life. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments earlier in the day on her case. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Aimee Stephens, the Detroit-area funeral home worker whose firing led to a Supreme Court case that could decide the employment rights of millions of transgender and gender-nonconforming people, died Tuesday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which was working on her case. She was 59.
Stephens had kidney disease for several years and required lengthy dialysis treatments. According to a GoFundMe set up last week to fundraise for her end-of-life costs, being fired from her job in 2013 contributed to “several years of lost income” that her family has been unable to recoup.
