A Florida-based organization of health care professionals has settled with a transgender former employee who claimed she was fired because of her gender identity, writes Remington Gregg on the HRC Blog. The case was one of the first two cases ever filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging that discrimination against ahttps://lgbtweekly.jeffjungblut.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post transgender person is sex discrimination.
In September 2014, the EEOC sued the Florida organization for discriminating against the transgender employee. The complaint alleged that after the employee came out to her employer as transgender she was informed that her position was being eliminated. However, the position was filled again only a few weeks following her termination. The alleged conduct violates the sex discrimination provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which the EEOC has determined also includes discrimination based on gender identity.
In its 2012 Strategic Enforcement Plan, the EEOC listed coverage of LGBT individuals under Title VII’s sex discrimination provision as a top enforcement priority.
This case was filed with a similar lawsuit against a Michigan-based funeral home that fired a transgender employee two weeks after learning of her transgender status. That suit is still pending. In addition, the settlement comes just days after the EEOC determined that Tamara Lusardi, a transgender civilian employee of the Army, was subject to discrimination on the basis of “sex” when she was denied access to common female restrooms.
