I just saw on the local news that a female IBM employee is suing the company because one of her coworkers, who is a transsexual, uses the womens bathroom. She stated that the woman isn't really a woman and that she shouldn't have to share the bathroom with her. The transsexual is post-op, which means HE has had the complete transformation, removal of the penis, testicles, has been on hormone treatment and lived as a woman for over a year and SHE now has had her name and gender legally changed.

Do you think that this co worker has the right to sue over this?

I say NO!!!!

I would need to know how gender-reassignment surgery is handled legally, and whether or not it varies from state to state to determine if she has a RIGHT to sue... but on a level of whether or not she SHOULD sue, the answer seems to be plainly no.

Based on what you presented, Billy Jean, I would say no, this co-worker does not have a right to sue.

Unless of course, she is being forced to use the SAME toilet at the SAME time as this other person...and since I hear that only happens in the troughs at the men's bathrooms in Wrigley Field, I doubt this is the case

I'd be curious to find out if this upset woman is married to a man. If so, does she share the bathroom with him? Does she let her father-in-law use it when he stops by?

More abuse of our legal system...no wonder we are losing so much faith in justice in this county

I'd be interested in learing more if anyone can find any articles on this.

I couldn't find an article about this, but I think that if the woman doesn't want to share a bathroom with her fellow employees, she should hold it until she gets home.

Really, in order to make an informed judgement, I would need to have a bit more information about the story, but if it is solely because the co-worker is a transexual, I don't see the logic.

This is ridiculous. Maybe this woman should sue every place in America with unisex bathrooms. Hey, why not? It is horrible how some can abuse rights such as our leagal system, it is disgusting.

CP

I think I misheard the reporter, it was a preview for the ten oclock news... but I did some research and the case was with two teachers at a school. Here's what I found:

Federal Appeals Court Rejects School Teacher's Lawsuit
Seeking To Keep Transgender Employee from Bathrooms (MN,US)

June 21, 2002
http://www.tgirls.net/port06.htm

Edited to remove entire copywrited article, per the Rules. Please do not make it easy for someone to sue us for stealing their work -Jaime

I apologize, I didn't realize this rule pertained to news articles.
I'm sorry

I didn't see the report at the link provided, so here's another source of information relating to the case:
ACLU archive, June 2003

Sounds to me like Cruzan is simply seeking legal justification for her own prejudices. What does the recipient of a successful transgender operation (Davis) have to do with religious freedom? I don't see the connection, and I certainly don't think sharing a porcelain bowl creates one either. As to the "hostile workplace based on sex," Davis is not said to have harassed or in any other way acted in a sexual manner towards Cruzan. I'm glad to see the justice system doesn't run everytime a plaintiff cries wolf, though it's unfortunate there are people who may still try.

Take Note: The tgirls.net site is for those members and other individuals over the age of 18. If you are not 18 or do not want to have a website of such nature in your web history, I would advise using alternative links provided.

Sue IBM?....no. That's stupid. She has no case.

--cheers

Billy Jean--great topic. I saw this news story myself, and I was appalled. If she is post-op, then she is a woman as far as I am concerned. I can imagine that she has been through enough regarding her gender identity, and it is a shame that someone would pour salt into the wounds, shall we say, over something so simple as which bathroom she should be allowed to use. I agree with an earlier post--it is cases like this that make a mockery of our judicial system. You can put this matter right up there with the absurd cases that have come against McDonald's in the past. With all that has been going on in the world, it is truly repulsive that a person would choose to devote her time,energy, and emotion to a case that she, in my opinion, can't possibly win. What a travesty.

This is an issue on which I am extremely liberal, so let me try to make as strong a case for the other side as I can.

If the person in question were not yet post-operative and appeared to be male, and Cruzan had no other bathroom facilities to use, I would understand her discomfort. If she were forced to see what appears to be a man in her restroom, and the school refused to make any reasonable accomodation, seeking a legal solution to the problem would be fine.

However, this does not seem to be the case. In fact, the school seems to have bent over backwards to accomodate her. Should the person in question, who seems to be a woman in appearance, and who seems to be a woman legally and socially, now be forced to use the men's bathroom? This would seem to cause much more of a problem.

It seems apparent that Cruzan does not like transsexuals (and she is entitled to that opinion.) She needs to leave her disdain once she enters the workplace.

Ah yes, old memories come to mind.

I worked for a company which had several thousand employees at that location. Rumors spread like wildfire when someone underwent the operation. What he/she was to be called was a major issue among people who wouldn't recognize her if they saw her on the street. I happened to be doing maintenance work in a building where one such person was working one day. A decision had been made to build her a separate bathroom, and the engineer who designed it included a urinal in the design so that it would be usable "when there were no longer any women working in the building." (There was a time when women and minorities weren't hired to work in that factory, and the engineer assumed that the Supreme Court would overthrow the "foolish" laws that made it necessary.)

Old memories came to mind. Should someone be allowed to sue over the use of the woman's bathroom by a woman? The person who has been neutered should be allowed to sue for sexual harassment if someone makes that big an issue of the surgery.

Is there a backstory here? Is the suer a fundie Christian? Maybe the suer and the TS had a relationship before the transgender lady had her surgery, and she's bitter about that?

I just strikes me as unusual and unlikely for there to be such hostility directed at a transgendered woman coming from another, "natural" woman. (Natural is the obvious word to use, but it reads clunkily without the quote marks. Not sure why.)

On the plus side (in a curmudgeonly fashion), it does at least demonstrate that men do not have the monopoly on bigotry and prejudice that we mostly see in our media.

Such people are usually shown as white males, in the same way that criminals are often represented as black males (usually in the USA, it seems). Both are true in specific cases, but neither are useful pointers to who we should or shouldn't trust in wider society.

I have a question about the entire situation.

How did the women know the guy/girl had a sex change? If the guy/girl had the operation, do women reguraly inspect each other's anatomy to make sure it's real?

My point is, either the woman knew the guy/girl when he/she was a guy or the guy/girl bragged about it. Either scenario forces a person into a position they would not have otherwise been in without the sex change.

I'm not sure this gives anybody the right to sue, but I think she has a legitimate gripe.

I can see what your saying DR - my understanding is that the TS lady worked in the same office while she was living as a man.

But I can't say I share your sympathy for the woman making the complaint, any more than I would had she complained that someone who used to use the stairs had started sharing the lift with her, unless her complaint were based on something more substantial than their mere presence in the lift (e.g. harassment, overpowering halitosis, that kind of thing).

Sharing stairs can harldy be compared with something as personal as bathroom habits.

I don't think you can change human nature just because you don't agree with it. Some of us take our bathroom habits very personally. Regardless of what the guy/girl may be on the outside, he's a man. No surgery in the world can change that. And basically, IBM invited a man into a public restroom who happens to look very much like a woman.

I would disagree with you on that, Dayton. If someone went as far as to have a sex change operation, I would say that s/he was always a woman on the inside.

Regardless, bathrooms have doors on the stalls. I fail to see how it could be offensive to use the same bathroom. It's not as if women can see each other doing their business in the bathroom, and the transexual didn't have some sort of contageous disease either.

Unless your slip was Freudian, the term for a "suer" (sewer?) is "Plaintiff."
Otherwise, the "Defendant" would be a "suee" (a hog call)!

This is a specious argument, and the case should be dismissed. No, DR, women do NOT watch each other "do their business," so they do not look at each other's anatomy. That's why we have stalls in our restrooms.

If the plaintiff does not like using the same bathroom, tough. She can get into her car and drive to the nearest McDonald's and use the restroom there (despite the fact that more transsexuals use Mickey D's restrooms), or "hold it" until she gets home, as was stated here by Cyan.

And yes, Julian, women CAN be just as petty and bigoted as men.

Hee hee! I think suer and suee more accurately reflect the nature of this case - maybe it WAS Freudian. But I did mean plaintiff and defendant, I just couldn't think of the right words.


Yup - I directed an amateur production of 12 Angry Men this year with a cast of women. Apart from the personal pronouns, I deliberately didn't change the dialogue (besides which our performing licence didn't permit me to) and it worked very convincingly indeed. Especially the Jurors 3 and 10 (if you know the play or film). But I've taken this off-topic enough already. Suffice it to say I think the proposed lawsuit in question is evidence enough of the female sex's equal claim to ingorance and stupidity.