Earlier this week, the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) filed a complaint against an Orlando McDonald’s on behalf of seventeen-year-old Zikerria Bellamy. Managers at the restaurant had refused Bellamy a job interview and subsequently a job after learning she was transgendered. One manager followed up those rejections by leaving Bellamy an obscene voicemail that explained why she wouldn’t be hired.
Bellamy has been living as a female for the past six years and was looking for a way to make some extra money when she applied at McDonald’s. Instead, she was laughed at by one manager when she walked into the restaurant and was verbally harassed by another – in addition to using gay slurs against her, the unidentified man on the voicemail also calls her a liar.
Now readers of this blog are well aware that Bellamy should never have been denied a job because she is transgender, let alone be the victim of anti-gay slurs. She should have been given the chance to earn a living without being refused for reasons that have zero to do with her ability to actually DO the job. Interestingly enough, Bellamy worked at another McDonald’s location for three years, so clearly she had experience working in fast-food, as well as experience working for this particular chain. Hmm…
Since the story broke, one of the McDonald’s managers has been fired. A spokesperson for the restaurant said that particular employee was not responsible for hiring and no longer worked there. There hasn’t been any mention of the second manager (the laugher, I’m guessing…?). It’s also been brought to public attention that McDonald’s has a zero tolerance policy prohibiting discrimination or harassment in the restaurant.
Unfortunately, there are still few protections for transgender people who experience employment discrimination. In Florida, there are no laws that explicitly address discrimination based on gender identity, but administrative agencies have ruled that transgender protections fall under the state’s Civil Rights Acts prohibitions on sex and disability discrimination. On a federal level, the storied Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), introduced in nearly every Congress since 1994, would address workplace discrimination (at companies with fifteen or more employees) by making it illegal to refuse to hire (fire, refuse to promote) based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Since November 5, when the latest version was heard by the Senate for the first time, not much has happened since.
The TLDEF says that nearly 50 percent of transgender people in the United States have been fired or not given a job because of their transgender status.
What do you think? Are you impressed with how McDonald’s handled this situation? Personally, I’d like to have heard how McDonald’s plans on preventing issues like this from happening again – maybe an in-store diversity training? Or perhaps explanations about what sexual identity harassment is and why it will not be tolerated? Let me know. How could this situation have been prevented?
Photo courtesy of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund website.
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