Skip to main content

Fil-Am transgender sues Macy's for discrimination



Fil-Am transgender sues Macy’s for discrimination
Balitang America
Posted at 05/22/2010 1:36 PM | Updated as of 05/22/2010 1:36 PM
www.abs-cbnnews.com

CALIFORNIA - A Filipino American is suing her former employer Macy’s department store for wrongful termination and discrimination.

For close to 3 years, Filipino American Jason “Jazz” Araquel, Jr. was at employee at the Macy’s store in the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California. Araquel is a pre-operative male to female transgender, which Macy’s management knew when she was hired in 2006.

Araquel, who worked in the cosmetics department, was fired in September last year for alleged insubordination and use of foul language. Araquel then filed a lawsuit claiming she was wrongfully terminated, alleging that she was a victim of gender identity discrimination, according to Araquel’s attorney Kelly Chen.

Araquel claims that throughout her employment at Macy’s, she experienced ongoing verbal abuse, being ejected from the women’s restroom, was required to do work assignments not part of her duties, was being held at a stricter standard, and was subjected to constant ridicule from both management and other employees.

She made ongoing complaints to management about being harassed and discriminated in the workplace. Araquel believes her termination was retaliation for those complaints.

“Given the sensitive nature and impact of the decision by any individual to change their sex – physically, psychologically and emotionally – it is abhorrent that Macy’s not only sat by and allowed her to suffer in an environment of humiliation and harassment from other employees, but its management actually contributed to her pain and suffering through its ongoing unfair treatment of her and eventually by her termination,” said Araquel’s attorney Eric Castelblanco. Balitang America
Labels:

Comments

~Carrie~ said…
I hope she wins the case. Let the world know that fab fashion companies shouldn't trample on people's rights, esp. gays.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Unknown said…
Although discrimination and harassment is wrong at many levels and should not be tolerated there are always two sides to any story. Certainly from the other side of the coin the alleged insubordination and use of foul language should also not have happened.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five Poems by Danton Remoto

In the Graveyard Danton Remoto The walls round the graveyard Are ancient and cracked. The moss is too thick they look dark. The paint on my grandfather’s tomb Has the color of bone. Two yellow candles we lighted, Then we uttered our prayers. On my left, somebody’s skull Stares back at me: a black Nothingness in the eyes. The graveyard smells of dust Finer than the pore of one’s skin— Dust mixed with milk gone sour. We are about to depart When a black cat darts Across our path, quickly, With a rat still quivering In its mouth. * Immigration Border Crossing (From Sadao, Thailand to Bukit Changloon, Malaysia) Danton Remoto On their faces that betray No emotion You can read the unspoken Questions: Are you really A Filipino? Why is your skin Not the color of padi ? Your eyes, Why are they slanted Like the ones Who eat babi ? And your palms, Why are there no callouses Layered like th...
Post a Comment
Read more

A mansion of many languages

BY DANTON REMOTO, abs-sbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 10/16/2008 1:00 AM REMOTE CONTROL In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said: “It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca and national language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of English say it does – access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking Americans, participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be assimilated by us with great advantage. Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism. Nobody wants to go back to the mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable skin. One’s experience with onio...
1 comment
Read more

Taboan: Philippine Writers' Festival 2009

By John Iremil E. Teodoro, Contributor The Daily Tribune 02/26/2009 A happy and historical gathering of wordsmiths with phallocentric and Manila-centric overtones *** This is from my friend, the excellent poet and critic John Iremil Teodoro, who writes from the magical island of Panay. I wish I have his energy, his passion and his time to write. Writing needs necessary leisure. But this budding, bading politician has shifted his directions. On this day alone, I have to attend not one, not two, but three political meetings. And there goes that new poem out of the window. Sigh. *** According to Ricardo de Ungria, a poet of the first magnitude and the director of Taboan: The Philippine International Writers Festival 2009, “the original idea was for a simple get together of writers from all over the country who have been recipients, directly or indirectly, of grants and awards from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). What happened last Feb. 11 to 13 was far from being ...
2 comments
Read more