El’Jai Devoureau A lobby group is taking a New Jersey company to court, in a landmark case, after a trans-man was fired from a male-only job. Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) says in June 2010 Urban Treatment Associates hired 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 Devoureau had transitioned from female to male and fired him on the spot. "I needed this job to support myself and my family. In this economy, jobs are really hard to find," says Devoureau. "They were happy to have me work there until they heard about my transition. I'm a hard worker and it's unfair that I was fired over something that has nothing to do with how well I did the job." TLDEF has now launched what it says is the first lawsuit to challenge the firing of a transgender person from a job where being male or female is a job qualification. The lawsuit challenges Urban Treatment's termination of 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 Devoureau was not male and therefore was 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." TLDF says trans people face tremendous discrimination in the workplace and 47 report being fired, or denied a job or promotion, just because of who they are.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 12th April 2011 - 10:25am