A former employee of the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury is alleging that leaders in the state office forced her to resign the day after she informed them that she was changing her name and preferred pronouns as part of a gender transition.
According to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday, the plaintiff worked as a field staff auditor for the comptroller for more than 14 years until January 2022. She alleges in the lawsuit that supervisors forced her to resign because of her gender transition.
A representative for Comptroller Jason Mumpower declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
According to the lawsuit, the employee began "gender transitioning treatment" with medical providers in June 2021. That same month, according to the lawsuit, she was put on her first and only "performance improvement plan" at work.
The PIP was completed within 90 days, in September 2021, with her supervisor informing her "that she was meeting all of the expectations in the PIP and had successfully completed all of the PIP's requirements," the lawsuit alleges.
Two months later, the employee received her first estrogen prescription and wore women's clothing to work for the first time. She alleges that her supervisor "treated her differently and less favorably" after she began wearing women's clothing to work.
In December 2022, the plaintiff alleges, she legally changed her name, and on Jan. 4, 2022, she asked human resources to change her name on her work email and other work systems. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges, she on Jan. 4 informed her supervisor that she now used female pronouns and asked for help "breaking the ice" with the rest of the team.
The next day, on Jan. 5, 2022, according to the lawsuit, supervisors called a meeting and said they planned to fire her unless she resigned, citing performance issues. She resigned due to accrued retirement benefits she would lose if she were fired, she says.
According to the lawsuit, state officials told the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that they decided to fire the plaintiff on Dec. 28, before the Jan. 4 notification of pronoun preference and name change. But she alleges in the lawsuit that comptroller's office leaders were aware of her gender transition, in part due to her wearing women's clothes. She also contends that if the firing were due to performance, it would have occurred at the end of the PIP, in September, before she began wearing women's clothing and asked supervisors to use female pronouns.
Comptroller's office leaders allegedly told the plaintiff she was being fired for failing to complete work "in a timely fashion." In the lawsuit, she contends that "virtually none" of her peer auditors had completed their county audits by the end of the fiscal year and none was terminated.
The plaintiff is asking the court for reinstatement to an equivalent job, back pay, compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys' fees. She is represented by Brentwood attorney Douglas Janney and the ACLU of Tennessee's Stella Yarbrough and Lucas Cameron-Vaughn.
“Gender identity or expression has no bearing on a person's ability to perform their job, be productive and contribute meaningfully to society," Yarbrough says. "Life's challenges for trans people arise not from their gender identity but from discriminatory practices and prejudices that persist across our state. We brought this lawsuit because no one should be forced to endure the workplace discrimination that [the plaintiff] faced simply because she chooses to live as her most authentic self.”
Update: The Scene removed the name of the plaintiff from this article following publication.
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
