A three-judge appellate court panel has a chance to right a wrong after members hear arguments today in the case of a gay Butler County man.

Brian Prowel worked for Wise Business Forms Inc. from 1991 through 2004, when he was fired. His case turns on the question of what it means to be subjected to discrimination based on sex versus discrimination based on sexual orientation. Under federal law, the former is illegal, but the latter is not.

That may seem clear enough, but real-life events don't always fit into neat categories. Although the company said he was let go because of downsizing, Mr. Prowel, who is effeminate, claimed in a lawsuit that he was fired because he didn't live up to his co-workers' stereotypes of how a man should look and act.

They ridiculed him, calling him Rosebud and Princess, writing about him on bathroom walls and leaving items including a feathered tiara at his workstation. That, his attorney argued, is gender stereotyping, and it is prohibited by Title VII, the federal law that forbids discrimination based on sex, religion, race and national origin.

Although the law doesn't mention gender stereotyping, a long line of court cases have found the practice to be illegal. But U.S. District Judge Terrence F. McVerry decided the treatment of Mr. Prowel, while reprehensible, was based on his sexual orientation, not because he is a man. (He ruled the same way on Mr. Prowel's claim of religious discrimination, which was based on material and statements by co-workers claiming Mr. Prowel would be punished by God for being gay.)

Twenty-one organizations committed to equality for working women have filed a brief in support of Mr. Prowel's position. His situation is analogous to that of a woman who enters a male-dominated profession, where she is criticized for not walking or dressing or acting as "a woman should."

Like them, we are worried about the implications a decision as narrow as Judge McVerry's could have for anyone, male or female, trying to make a living in a nontraditional field.