Worker planning sex-change surgery wins discrimination case

Associated Press

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The head of Colorado's civil rights agency has ruled that a worker who was fired while preparing to undergo sex-change surgery was dismissed because of her new identity as a woman, a violation of state anti-discrimination law.

Advocates praised the ruling, saying it was the first of its kind in Colorado and a sign that society has begun to better understand transgender people.

The ruling means Danielle Cornwell and representatives of her former employer, Intermountain Testing Co., will meet in October to try to agree on a resolution, her attorney, John Hummel, said Thursday.

Cornwell said she would not seek her job back. Hummel said such cases typically are resolved with a cash settlement.

Intermountain Testing President Gary Bollerud did not immediately return a call. His attorney, John Husband, declined to comment.

Cornwell, 54, filed a complaint in April with the state Civil Rights Division alleging she was fired in July 2005 because she was a woman and because she had recently told the company she planned to undergo gender-reassignment surgery.

The company argued Cornwell was fired because of a decline in business and because she had a low performance rating.

In his Aug. 21 decision, Civil Rights Division Director Wendell Pryor Pryor agreed Cornwell was fired because she was female said the evidence did not support the company's claims. He said no other employees doing similar work were fired.

''Given this, it appears that the (company's) decision to discharge (Cornwell) was based on her gender — female,'' Pryor wrote.

Pryor rejected Cornwell's claim that her dismissal was retaliation for notifying her employer about her gender transformation.

Hummel said the company did not dispute that Cornwell was a woman, and Pryor did not question it either.

''It's gratifying to us that the Colorado Civil Rights Division didn't find that aspect of the case controversial at all,'' said Hummel, who works for the Legal Initiatives Project of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of Colorado.

''Maybe that's a sign of progress in society in beginning to understand transgender people more than they had before,'' he said.

Attorney Mari Newman, who worked with Hummel, said the case will provide protection for other workers in Colorado who are transgender, a status that is not protected under the state's antidiscrimination laws. She said similar rulings have been issued in other states.

Cornwell said she hoped her case would help others in her situation.

''We put so much time in one place and all of a sudden we find our gender is not what it appears to be and we have to change it, and then we get looked on bad about it, we get laid off and put down for it,'' she said. ''I want to help change that.''

Cornwell, who lives in Arvada, said she enjoyed working at the Greenwood Village-based company, which uses X-rays and other methods to test materials for the construction and manufacturing industries.

She started work there in 1990 and had planned to work there until retirement.

''The well's been poisoned,'' she said. ''I don't think it would ever be the same there.''

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On the Net:

Civil Rights Division: http://www.dora.state.co.us/civil-rights

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center: http://www.glbtcolorado.org