-TSA spokesman Nico Melendez.
News has been breaking about the settlement reached in Ashley Yang’s case against the TSA. She is a transgender woman, who at the time she began working for the TSA had been undergoing hormone therapy for two years. She presented as female and has a female sex marker on her driver’s license.
However, when a background check revealed her former male name, she informed the agency that she was transgender. At this point, reportedly because of the policy that passengers must be searched by an agent of their same gender, the agency asked if Ms. Yang had had sex reassignment surgery yet.
She had not and was told that she would thus have to pat down male passengers and would need to present as male and use the men’s bathroom.
She obliged for two years but was fired when she was seen using the women’s restroom (which she knew she had the legal right to do).
The settlement includes a nice chunk of change from the TSA to Ms. Yang and also requires that TSA managers undergo mandatory sensitivity training re:trans people.
For more information on all of this (and a pretty decent mainstream media effort on reporting trans issues), check out the following article: LAX Managers Ordered To Undergo Sensitivity Training After Transgender Employee Was Ordered To Use Men’s Room « CBS Los Angeles
(via xxboy)