Transsexual sues Burlington Coat Factory over harassment

[FreeState]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/24/BA291631QA.DTL&tsp=1

SAN FRANCISCO - -- A transsexual former employee of Burlington Coat Factory filed a discrimination suit against the company today, claiming she endured seven years of verbal and physical abuse from supervisors, colleagues and customers after undergoing sexual reassignment surgery.

Steven Wicks-Perez transitioned from a man to a woman in 2001 and then changed his name to Maya. Perez said supervisors encouraged him to transition but in the following seven years continually harassed her. Perez said she was exposed to sexual conversations and pornography; that co-workers grabbed and touched her breasts, buttocks and genitals; and that customers verbally and physically assaulted her.

"It was horrifying and humiliating," Perez said this morning during a press conference at the Legal Aid Society, the nonprofit legal organization representing her. "No other employee was allowed to be treated the way that I was."

..snip...

Perez' suit is one of the first cases brought on behalf of a transgender employee in California since the state amended the Fair Employment and Housing Act in 2004 to clarify that discrimination on the basis of sex specifically includes gender identity and expression, said Elizabeth Kristen, one of Perez's attorneys.

Unfortunately this is all too common. It is extremely difficult to get "good" statistics about Transgendered persons - many refuse to self identify to strangers etc. However what we are able to get is beyond frightening.

http://transgroupblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/cold-showers-and-statistics.html

Employment:
13%-56% of transgender people had been fired
13%-47% had been denied employment
22%-31% had been harassed, either verbally or physically, in the workplace

Education:
40.7% of students felt unsafe in their own school
45.5% had been verbally harassed
26.1% had been physically harassed
11.8% had been assaulted

[monmouth]

1. Yet she stayed for 7 years????...n/t

[FreeState]

2. With little employment options one takes what one can get

Transgendered persons have a very difficult time getting an interview yet alone a job.

[monmouth]

3. Good point. Didn't know what the employment situation was...n/t

[MADem]

4. I can sort of see why someone might be fearful of griping about bosses and co-workers....

...if one was fearful of losing one's job.

But customer harassment? That includes verbal and physical assault?

That's time to get the police involved, and people arrested. And one doesn't even have to wave the "transgender flag" to make it happen.

Assault is assault. And we know damn well that the Burlington Coat Factory is loaded from end to end with security cameras, so there would have been video.

I find the long wait of seven interminable years putting up with this nonsense a bit curious, but one never can get in the head of another. Perhaps she felt it would stop eventually. I certainly hope she's got a good head for names and dates.