A transgender man who was fired from his job has filed a lawsuit against his former employer claiming gender discrimination. The man was hired at a drug treatment center and his job included monitoring men as they urinated to ensure that they were not cheating on drug tests. The job was only open to men, which he and his attorney say is not the problem. The problem is that they say he was wrongfully terminated for not being a man because he is one.
According to The Associated Press, this case could be the first U.S. case in which a transgender person is claiming discrimination based on their gender at birth. The former employee was born a female, but says he always considered himself a male. He has undergone sex reassignment surgery and has a reissued driver’s license, Social Security card, and birth certificate that all say he is male.
The man says that after he was hired, he was trained for the job. The first day of work, however, a manager took him aside and asked if he was a man and the former employee said that he was. The manager then pressed the point, asking if he had surgeries to physically make him one. The man told his manager that that was private information, and he was fired.
A person who counsels employers on how to avoid transgender discrimination was interviewed by the AP and said that when the manager learned the employee was transgender, he should have aimed to end transphobia and heterosexism at the workplace, rather than fire the employee.
Source:
NJ transgender man sues over drug-center firing (Forbes)