Nope

[Content Note: Transphobia; cis gatekeeping; gender essentialism; body policing.]

Every single thing about this is terrible: A 21-year-old trans man from Louisiana named Tristan Broussard was fired from his job at Tower Loan after the company's vice-president told him that "the corporate office had to 'draw a line,' and that Broussard would have to sign an agreement that his gender identity wasn't 'in compliance with Tower Loan's personnel policies' or leave the company."

This, after Broussard had disclosed being trans to his direct manager, who'd assured him "that he wouldn't be judged and had nothing to worry about."

But the higher-ups disagreed, and insisted Broussard dress and identify as a woman at work or be fired.

"I told him, 'I can't,'" Broussard said. "'I'm going to have to turn in my keys.'"

So Broussard left his job, and now, with the assistance of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Broussard is suing for wrongful termination: "The complaint cites Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, and which, since 2012, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has interpreted to apply to anti-transgender discrimination. In the past year, both the EEOC and Justice Department have filed lawsuits against businesses or governmental entities alleging Title VII violations based on anti-transgender discrimination."

The cis gatekeeping at work here is incredible, as it always is in such cases, but this is just beyond the fucking beyond:

According to the lawsuit, after Broussard declined to sign the agreement, Morgan told him that if "he 'had some surgeries and we can see some results,' then Tower Loan may consider hiring him again."

First of all, it never stops being awesome (it is the opposite of awesome) how cis people flippantly advise trans* people to get surgery, as if gender reassignment surgeries in the US are affordable and accessible. Even trans* people with insurance struggle to access all the healthcare services they need, many of which aren't covered by most employer policies, and this asshole wants to fire someone and then tell him to go get some surgeries.

Which is to say nothing of the fact that no trans* person should be required to get surgery, if they don't want it. Certainly not to please an employer at a job where one's gender is irrelevant to one's vocational competency.

And I don't know that I've ever read clearer evidence that cis people think it's our role to be gatekeepers of trans* bodies than telling a trans* employee you may be willing to rehire them if they have "some surgeries and we can see some results." See. Some. Results. Go surgically alter your body then come back here and pull your pants down, and we'll see.

Breathtakingly contemptible. And yet utterly unsurprising, because cis privilege routinely tells cis people that policing trans* people's bodies is not just our right, but our responsibility.

It is neither.

I wish Tristan Broussard good outcomes in his lawsuit.

[H/T to Shaker Westsidebecca.]