Trans man files discrimination lawsuit against DFW hospital

A transgender man says he was harassed, discriminated against and eventually fired at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth because of his gender identity, according to a lawsuit filed in Tarrant County on July 19. The man worked at JPS from 2013 to July 2021, according to the civil suit, and medically transitioned from a woman to a man about five years ago. About a year before his medical transition began, he told his supervisor about the transition so she could educate and prepare his coworkers if needed. But the supervisor did not talk to the team, the suit says, and the man’s coworkers started to harass him and be hostile toward him. In response to the suit, a JPS spokesman said JPS “believes in equality in its employment practices and has a firm commitment to diversity and inclusion consistent with our Equal Employment Opportunity policy. JPS does not discriminate based on sex or gender identification.”

The spokesman said the hospital will not comment publicly about “any employment action taken with respect to any particular individual,” but noted that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigated the allegations, and issued a dismissal of the charge and a right to sue letter to the former employee. According to court documents, the man filed a discrimination charge against JPS with the EEOC division of the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division in January. “Instead of ensuring that the harassment and discrimination stopped, JPS told me that there is nothing that can be done to stop the harassment and discrimination,” the man wrote in the discrimination charge. The man, who worked at the hospital, said in the suit that his coworkers blatantly refused to use his correct pronouns and talked about him within earshot. The coworkers called him “a he-she, it, abomination and made comments that (he) was not even human,” the suit says. The coworkers asked him inappropriate questions about his sexuality and genitalia and called him “Mr. Potato Head,” because, the suit explains, “you can just stick things onto a Mr. Potato Head doll.” When the man reported the harassment to his supervisor, according to the suit, the supervisor said there was nothing she could do because “everyone has different beliefs” and “it was (his) word against that of his coworkers.”