Trans woman sues Amazon for harassment and physical threats
BRIESELANG, GERMANY – SEPTEMBER 04: A worker prepares packages for delivery at an Amazon warehouse on September 4, 2014 in Brieselang, Germany. Germany is online retailer Amazon’s second largest market after the USA. Amazon is currently in a standoff with several book publishers over sales conditions and prices for e-books, and hundreds of authors in the US and Europe have written letters in support of the publishers. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
A trans woman and her husband have sued Amazon after they say they were subjected to physical threats and harassment.
The couple worked at an Amazon warehouse in Kentucky.
The group which represents the couple have expressed surprise that the company did not deal with the alleged harassment given its support for LGBT+ rights.
According to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Kentucky on Wednesday, Allegra Schawe-Lane was called “shemale” and referred to as a “crossdresser” by colleagues.
The lawsuit also alleged that Schawe-Lane and her husband Dean Lane were subjected to comments about their sex life.
Supervisors were alerted to the harassment, the couple say, during the time they worked at the Hebron warehouse.
But they say that the company took no action, even when they said they feared for their lives when a colleague cut the brake lines on their car.
They quit Amazon in 2015 after the incidents took place.
The company is yet to respond to the lawsuit.
Jillian Weiss, the executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Eduacation Fund, representing the couple, issued a statement on Wednesday.
She said: “We call on Amazon to examine the disconnect between the message of its hit show Transparent and the discrimination perpetrated against Allegra and Dane.”
The lawsuit says Amazon violated Kentucky and federal laws banning discrimination based on sex in the workplace.
Other courts have also ruled in recent lawsuits that discrimination based on gender identity is also illegal.
Schawe-Lane also alleges that Amazon violated the Americans with Disabilities Act because her gender dysphoria was viewed as a disability by supervisors.
