Tristan Broussard, A Transgender Man, is Suing Loan Company Over Sex Bias Claim

Tristan Broussard — that’s him up there — is a 21-year-old transgender man who has just filed a sex discrimination lawsuit saying he was forced to leave his job at First Tower Loan LLC. after company officials found out he was born a woman but dressed and acted like a man.

Oh, and very clearly looks like man, too.

Broussard was hired in February 2013 as a sales representative at Tower Loan of Lake Charles, Louisiana, but says he was forced to leave the job a month later after David Morgan, a company vice president, discovered he was listed on his driver's license as female. After Broussard told Morgan he was a transgender male, David Morgan then tried to have him sign a document promising that he … he … would dress as a female and that, when out of town on business, he would stay in rooms with other female employees. The statement also said that his "preference to act and dress as male, despite having been born a female, is not something that will be in compliance with Tower Loan's personnel policies."

Let’s think about that; think about Tristan Broussard for a moment; he dresses male, looks male, acts male, is male, but he would be forced to share hotel rooms with women because the gender he was assigned at birth is female? How is that right, not only for him, but for the women with whom he’d be sharing a bedroom?

Rightly so, Tristan Broussard refused to sign the statement, left the job, and is now seeking damages against the company. His suit also alleges that Morgan told him that if “he ‘had some surgeries and we can see some results,’ then Tower Loan may consider hiring him again.”

Show us your penis, and we'll rehire you?

His legal case is backed by the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Broussard hopes his case would send a message to other employers about treating transgender workers fairly.

"It takes one person at a time to take a stand. It doesn’t matter how you’re dressed and presenting yourself — that has nothing to do with your work."

His case has already been reviewed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC] and the commission ruled last December that discrimination had occurred, though they declined to pursue the case against Tower Loan.

We need to wake up, people, and realize that there are transgender people out there, and that this is not the way to treat people. If Tristan Broussard had been able to change his driver’s license to reflect his true gender, this never would have happened. He’d still have a job, and he’d still be known as Tristan.

As he should.

story via ABC News

additional info and image via Buzzfeed