[nebolo]

"What the writers had in mind" is one way of interpreting laws in the present day, but by no means the only way. You will probably find a ton of laws in effect today that are applied to things, or interpreted in ways, that no one could have anticipated when they were written.

[andrewla]

The thing is that the concept of transgender and homosexuality both existed and were recognized at the time. This isn't extending law based on telegraphs to computers; this is extending law based on telegraphs to horse-based mail delivery.

That said, clearly these classes should be afforded the same protections; I'm just more comfortable with our legislators making that explicit in the law rather than courts arbitrarily expanding the scope of the law. There is at least one attempt, [1], that is still in progress; hopefully now that the courts have made it moot it will be easier to pass this to codify the result.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/5