EEOC sues on behalf of trans employees in 2 harassment cases
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission today (Wednesday, Sept. 25) announced two separate lawsuits alleging harassment in the workplace.
Both cases involved transgender employees who were fired after reporting harassment by their supervisors and coworkers. One of the cases involved a transgender housekeeper at a hotel in Buffalo, N.Y., and the second involved a transgender employee at a pizza restaurant located at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
In the Buffalo case, according to an EEOC press release, “Eight related entities operating Boxwood Hotels LLC, Holiday Inn Express and Hampton Inn hotels in Western New York violated federal law when they fired a transgender housekeeper the day after the housekeeper complained that a supervisor repeatedly misgendered them and made anti-transgender statements.” The lawsuit alleges that on the transgender employee’s first day at work, their supervisor “referred to them as a ‘transformer,’ made multiple offensive derogatory comments about being transgender and repeatedly misgendered the housekeeper or referred to them as ‘it.’” After the employee “made prompt complaints” to both local managers and the corporate office, “instead of taking action to stop the unlawful conduct, management suggested that the job might not be a good fit and told the housekeeper their services were no longer needed.” In the second case, a transgender employee at Reggio’s Pizza’s airport location reported to the company that she believed a manager had outed her as transgender to her coworkers, resulting in coworkers misgendering her which prompted a customer to make an offensive comment using both an LGBTQ slur and a racial slur, the lawsuit alleges. “When the employee reported these additional incidents to a manager, he took her badge, which was tantamount to firing her, as it prevented her from returning to work,” an EEOC press release says.
