The US Supreme Court decided in a historic decision on Monday that a key provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects workers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) against job discrimination.

The court ruled in a 6-3 vote that federal protections against workplace discrimination against employees because of a person's sex, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status.

The ruling was authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017.

Chief Justice John Roberts, another conservative, along with the court's four liberal justices, joined Gorsuch's opinion.

"An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.

"Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids."

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the ruling.

The cases were the court's first on LGBT rights since Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement and replacement by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Kennedy was a voice for gay rights and the author of the landmark ruling in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States.

kw/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

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