Transgender Woman Sues Burlington Coat Factory for Employment Discrimination
This week, the San Francisco Chronicle and Law.com reported that Maya Perez, a transgender woman, filed a sexual harassment and gender discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, Burlington Coat Factory, claiming that while she was a sales associate in their San Francisco store, she had to endure seven years of physical and verbal abuse from her supervisors, colleagues and customers after undergoing sexual reassignment surgery. Perez is one of a handful of transgender people who are litigating such employment discrimination matters.
Perez began working at the San Francisco store in 1996. Perez alleges that after she transitioned from a man to a woman in 2001, fellow co-workers and customers harassed her by pushing and groping her, showing her pornographic magazines and photographs, and calling her names such as “he-she.” The managers and security guards failed to intervene and protect her after they heard and saw the incidents either in person or on the store’s security cameras. The store also prevented her from changing her name tag from “Stevie,” her male name, to “Maya,” her current name. After legally changing her name from “Steven Perez” to “Maya Perez” in 2003, the store forced her to reapply for her position with her new name, even though she had already worked in the store for seven years.
Burlington Coat Factory’s company policy prohibits discrimination based on sex, but it does not make reference to sexual orientation or gender identity as protected classes. After Perez complained to her supervisors and the regional human resource director about the harassment, neither took any steps to investigate the issue, as required by company policy. Perez is seeking punitive damages, emotional distress, back pay and a change in employment policies to ensure that managers and employees are more sensitive toward gender identity matters.
