From the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund:
The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) announced today that it has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a transgender man who was fired from a male-only job solely because he is transgender. This is the first lawsuit to challenge the firing of a transgender person from a job where being male or female is a job qualification.There's also the issue of sex discrimination. Is it okay to say that only men can have certain jobs and only women others? And it doesn't just stop at urine monitor (presumably the job was watching men pee so they didn't fake it and submit someone else's clean urine). What about high school gym teacher, where you hand the boys their towels coming out of the shower? Or maintenance staff for a public pool, where you need to be in the locker rooms while people are there changing? Is it okay to say "men only" or "women only" for those jobs, and if it is, who decides if you're a man or a woman - is your word enough (regardless of whether you're trans)? (Which is a question another recent lawsuit raised (in terms of birth records in NYC).)
In June 2010, defendant Urban Treatment Associates LLC (“Urban Treatment,” based in Camden, New Jersey) hired plaintiff El’Jai Devoureau as a urine monitor for men. His job responsibilities included monitoring male outpatients as they provided urine samples for drug testing. On his second day of work, Urban Treatment was told that Mr. Devoureau had transitioned from female to male and fired him on the spot.
The lawsuit challenges Urban Treatment’s termination of Mr. Devoureau as a violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, which protects transgender people from employment discrimination. In filings before the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, Urban Treatment claimed Mr. Devoureau was not male and therefore not qualified for the job.
"This lawsuit challenges the discriminatory view that transgender men cannot work as men,” said TLDEF executive director Michael Silverman. “El’Jai was qualified for the job and he performed it without complaint or incident," he added. "What matters in the workplace is how you do your job, not who you are."
