State lawmakers move to dismiss lawsuit by transgender employee
24th October 2008
The leaders of Georgia’s legislative branch have asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a transgender employee who claims she lost her job once she announced her intention to transition full time to a woman.
Vandiver Elizabeth Glenn claims she was fired from her job as a legislative editor last year when she announced her decision to transition. A lawsuit filed July 22 by Glenn names Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram), Senate President Pro-Tempore Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, lawyer Sewell Brumby and Robyn Underwood, the state’s legislative financial officer.
According to her complaint, when Glenn asked why she was being terminated, she said Brumby told her she would make other employees uncomfortable and that lawmakers would find her decision to transition “immoral.”
In October 2006, a year after Glenn began working for the state, she said that she informed her supervisor, Beth Yinger, that she was transsexual and wished to transition from male to female. Glenn was diagnosed with gender identity disorder, a medical condition in which people do not identify with their biological bodies.
Filed in U.S. District Court, Glenn’s lawsuit claims the state violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing equal protection, in part because firing Glenn disregarded her need to undergo gender transition as part of necessary treatment.
In the motion to dismiss filed Oct. 16, the attorney for the state lawmakers, Richard Sheinis of Hall, Booth, Smith & Slover, argued that even if Glenn was fired because of her transition, she does not have legal grounds to sue because there is no relief under state or federal law for transgender people.
“An equal protection claim must allege that Plaintiff was a member of an identifiable group, and differential treatment ‘based on their membership of that very group,’” Sheinis wrote. “Plaintiff’s complaint fails as a matter of law because she alleges that she was treated differently from other employees to whom she was similarly situated, but there is no allegation that the differential treatment was based on her membership in an identifiable group.
“There is not an allegation that a governmental classification affects some group of citizens differently than others. Asking this court to determine if [Glenn] is similarly situated to other employees requires the court to second guess the subjective, individualized assessments that are a part of any employment decision. It would make every decision by a government employer a constitutional matter,” Sheinis argued in the motion.
Representatives from Hall, Booth, Smith & Slover did not return calls seeking comment.
‘PART OF HISTORY’
At the state legislature, Glenn worked as one of four editors who sit at desks in a windowless L-shaped room in the bowels of the Capitol building.
“The office had no windows, so pretty much all we had was each other,” Glenn said.
Legislative editors proofread bills for typographical errors, spelling, grammar and format, but do not affect the content of proposed laws and resolutions. For Glenn, the job was a way to join the legislative process and part of her family’s tradition.
A Georgia native, she took the name Vandiver from her relative Ernest Vandiver, a former governor of Georgia and a patriarch of a noted family of Democratic politicians that includes current Georgia Democratic Party Chairperson Jane Kidd.
“When I would have free moments sometimes I would go out of the office and roam the halls and look at the historical exhibits they have on every floor. It’s really wonderful,” Glenn said.
What she says she found at the Capitol was a fulfilling job with coworkers who hosted brownie bakeoffs and poetry competitions — a job she said she would return to any day her employers offered to have her back.
“I really liked being part of the legislative process,” she said. “I felt like I was being part of democracy, part of history.”
For Glenn, who goes by the name Vandy Beth, working at the Capitol was, “Probably my favorite job ever. I enjoyed the work, I was good at the work.”
Glenn says she struggled with her gender identity since entering puberty. While writing was her passion, she never wrote professionally before taking the job at the General Assembly. She was living as Glenn Morrison and working in information technologies in what she said “is probably the most boring part about my life.”
‘SINGLED OUT’?
Although she felt her life at odds with her gender, she remained living as a man because she wanted a family.
“I didn’t want to transition because I still wanted to get married and have children, and I felt if I transitioned it would be impossible, or so difficult as to be impossible,” she said.
“I never got married, I never had kids. In 2004 there was a woman that I was dating and that ended spectacularly in ways that were mostly my fault, and that’s when I finally realized that if I was not transitioning because I wanted to be happy, by finding a family, etcetera, then that wasn’t working.
“If I was just going to be alone, as at that point it looked like, then I really didn’t have anything to lose by transitioning, and maybe if I transitioned that would open new doors for me,” she said.
Almost a year after Glenn decided to transition, a friend recommended she apply for the legislative editor’s job. Even though it was a 15 percent pay cut from her job in the private sector, Glenn, then still living as a man, took the position.
Glenn said not disclosing her intentions to transition when she was hired was the right move. “At the time it was a private medical issue, it had nothing to do with my life as I was living it at the time,” she said. “I was a couple of years away from visibly transitioning, so at that point it wasn’t an issue.”
Cole Thaler serves as national transgender rights attorney for Lambda Legal, based in the organization’s Southern Regional Office in Atlanta. Lambda Legal is representing Glenn in the suit.
“The question that has been raised is simply as a matter of law, ‘Does she have a legal right to proceed with the case?’” Thaler said. “I think that the facts of the case are clear that she was singled out for unfair treatment because of who she is, because of characteristics that were unfavorable to her employer.”
Georgia has no employment nondiscrimination law, and as a result Lambda Legal filed the suit on behalf of Glenn in the federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
“Georgia is an at-will state, [and] that means that employees can be fired for a good reason, a bad reason or any reason at all, but they cannot be fired for an illegal reason,” Thaler said at the time the suit was filed.
“The Constitution provides that public employees cannot be discriminated against,” Thaler said. “That means even employees in an at-will state can assert constitutional protections for their job.”
The two sides will now exchange a series of filings on the motion to dismiss before it goes before a federal judge who may or may not ask for oral arguments before making a ruling.
Glenn is seeking legal costs and reinstatement to the legislative editor’s office.
Source: SOVO