Finance company settles trans discrimination case with $115,000

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A US financial services company will pay a trans former employee $115,000 in damages and issue an apology.

Deluxe Financial Services Inc, a cheque printing company, will also change its policies on transgender employees as part of the settlement, reports BuzzFeed News.

The company denies that it mistreated Britney Austin, who says she was subjected to transphobic slurs when she came out at work.

Austin says she was banned from using the restroom corresponding to her gender identity, and that the company refused to change her name on official documentation.

She also says that the company denied her health insurance coverage for her transition and related care, and that when she was laid off, the company declined to pay her severance.

The settlement was approved by a Minnesota judge this week.

Austin had been represented by private attorneys, and was backed in court by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Deluxe Financial Services senior vice president of human resources Julie Loosbrock, said in an apology: “We want to ensure you that we have made changes to our internal policies, including how we treat transgender employees’ requests to change biographical information or use a restroom commensurate with their gender identity.”

“The company has changed its policies to ensure that transgender employees may use a restroom commensurate with their gender identity, that the company will promptly correct that employee’s sex designation and name in our internal records and systems, and that we will take hostile comments based on sex- stereotyping seriously, investigate them, and take prompt corrective and remedial action.”

The company has agreed to stop excluding trans issues from its health insurance cover, and to ensure employees are allowed to use appropriate bathrooms for their gender identity.

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