Eye clinic settles transgender suit

A Polk County eye clinic will pay $150,000 to settle a federal employment discrimination suit brought on by a transgendered former employee.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the Lakeland Eye Clinic agreed to a settlement in one of the first lawsuits the commission ever filed against a company alleging sex discrimination against a transgendered individual. The settlement includes implementing a new gender discrimination policy, and the firm must also provide educational training to other employees about transgender/gender stereotype discrimination.

The EEOC says the Lakeland Eye Clinic fired its director of hearing services after she began to present as a woman, and informed her bosses that she was transgender, according to a release. That violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal agency maintains, and led the EEOC to file a lawsuit last year.

The eye clinic should be “commended for its cooperation with the EEOC in reaching this historic settlement in a timely fashion,” attorney Robert Weisberg says in the release. “As employers take a leadership role in enforcing the law prohibiting discrimination based on one's gender identity, the American workplace will move closer to embracing an inclusive work environment where employees are judged on their merit, and not on any preconceived gender stereotype.”