Apple joins over 200 businesses calling on Supreme Court to favor LGBT labor protections

Apple has joined the ranks of over 200 corporations behind an amicus filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, calling on justices to find that existing sex discrimination laws protect LGBT workers as well.

Other prominent backers include Amazon, Comcast/NBCUniversal, eBay, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Uber, Axios reported on Tuesday. Collectively, the companies argue that LGBT protections benefit both their businesses and the overall U.S. economy.

The Supreme Court is currently out of session however, and won't resume until October.

The Trump administration has gradually rolled back LGBT rights ushered in during the Obama era, such as an interpretation of Title XI allowing transgender students to use their bathroom of choice. Transgender people have also been banned from the military, and a proposed rule change by the Department of Health and Human Services would drop non-discrimination safeguards for transgender or non-binary patients.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was the first openly gay CEO of a major U.S. corporation, and has thrown his weight behind numerous LGBT causes, for instance opposing the Trump administration's efforts to restrict transgender rights. He has appeared at multiple San Francisco Pride Parades, and the company has maintained a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index for 17 years.

Long before Cook was CEO, Apple was one of the first U.S. businesses to extend equal benefits to same-sex partners, dating back to the very early '90s.