The TSA is an equal opportunity abuser. They not only subject airline passengers to humiliating pat-downs and potentially harmful scans. They mistreat their own personnel.
One of them, a screener at Los Angeles International Airport, fought back and won. Ashley Yang, 29, a transgender female, was ordered by the TSA cut her long hair short and dress like a man even though she had undergone hormone therapy as part of her sex reassignment.
It is hard to know whether the most odious task Yang faced was using the male restroom or patting down male passengers. At any rate, when she complained to her supervisors after two years on the job at LAX, she was fired.
Yang filed a sex discrimination lawsuit, which was decided in favor last December. The court ordered the TSA to pay her five months of back salary and awarded tens of thousands of dollars in damages.
Last week, the TSA announced that its managers at LAX would undergo mandatory sensitivity training.
Of Yang’s case, Kristina Wertz of the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, which assisted her in her suit, states:
Ashley lives her life as a woman. Her co-workers recognized her as a woman. Passengers recognized her as a woman. But her employer didn't. She was asked to hide who she was just in order to earn a living.
Chalk this one up as victory for civil rights and another black eye for the TSA.
Related Articles
- Pregnant diabetic passenger says TSA confiscated her insulin
- TSA to adopt Israeli-style profiling at airports; what could be bad?
- TSA orders dying, 95-year-old woman to remove diaper during 45-minute search
- TSA revises child pat-down policy
- Latest TSA fail: Four massive chef's knives waved through O’Hare security
- TSA screeners accused of racial profiling
- TSA takes toy away from mentally challenged man
- TSA still keeping America safe—from 6-year-old girls (video)
- Video of the TSA “molesting” a 3-year-old and other horror stories
Click Subscribe at the top of the page to have my articles sent directly to your e-mail inbox. Follow me on Twitteror join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.comor by posting a comment below.
Comments