Transgender Workers Struggle With Bias Claims
Posted on August 24, 2008
Filed Under Gay News Blog
By DOUGLAS S. MALAN
Employment attorneys and lawyers for advocacy groups are keeping a close eye on a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C. that could provide additional protections for transgender people in the work force.
But in this area of unsettled law, victories for transgender people are sometimes difficult to come by. Last week, Connecticut federal court Judge Alvin W. Thompson granted summary judgment to the defendants in a case where transgender woman Yvonne Morales sued her employer over sex discrimination, claiming Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act and Title VII violations.
Thompson ruled that Morales, formerly known as Javier, came up short in her lawsuit, which included allegations of raunchy workplace comments and behavior, because she “failed to produce any evidence that the alleged discrimination and harassment occurred because of her failure or refusal to conform to gender stereotypes.”
Morales worked at ATP Health & Beauty Care as a machine operator in its Stamford-based manufacturing plant.
Bridgeport attorney V. Michael Simko handled the case pro bono and attributed the loss to a lack of witnesses to back his client’s claims and the state’s failure to approve a transgender discrimination law in the past three legislative sessions.
When filing the case in 2006, “I took a risk that the legislature would be farther along,” Simko said. “I was a couple of years too early. The lack of law doomed my risky endeavor.”
The transgender job bias lawsuit in Washington involves retired Army Col. Diane Schroer, who headed a classified national security operation while serving as a Special Forces officer. She then accepted a position as senior terrorism research analyst with the Library of Congress, but the job offer was withdrawn when she told her future boss that she was transgender.
The lawsuit, because it’s against the federal government, could have a nationwide impact on employment policy, observers say.
“This case, the way it’s going, would seem to establish that transgender people are protected,” said Jennifer Levi, the Transgender Rights Project Director of Massachusetts-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. Levi, who is a law professor at Western New England College, has provided testimony in support of protected-class legislation in Connecticut.
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Estimating the population of transgender people in the United States is difficult. A 1994 study contended that approximately 1 in 30,000 people born as males and 1 in 100,000 people born as females undergo a sex-change operation in this country.More of Transgender Workers Struggle With Bias Claims
Connecticut Law Tribune, Hartford
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