Law.com – Marie-Anne Hogarth – The Recorder
In what appears to be part of a new wave of employment discrimination suits involving transgenders, San Francisco attorney Waukeen McCoy is suing an international engineering firm on behalf of a 44-year-old pre-operative female who was forced out of her job.
Danielle Ryan worked as an IT systems analyst with Parsons Brinckerhoff in Sacramento for a decade before she began her shift from male to female, the suit alleges.
After she began taking hormones and coming to work in woman’s clothing, she was harassed by co-workers and superiors, who asked her to bare her breasts and compared her to Klinger, a character from the television program “MASH.” The company demoted her to part-time status and ultimately forced her out, according to the lawsuit.
The suit filed in Sacramento County Superior Court last month is the latest to take advantage of a 2004 amendment to California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act that explicitly protects transgender employees. At least four similar cases have settled in California.