Discrimination

• Posted by jan jefferies July 31, 2012 1,571 views
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  To the entire Rose City T-Girl group,

   

  You are all important and since we have such a supportive group, we want you to know about this before it becomes public information. 

   

  Sometimes in life we have to make tough decisions that might not be popular with an entire group of people like ours.  Our community, in particular, has many different opinions about many topics as we see that all the time within our own group.  We hope you can understand the decision that six of us made in regards to the P Club situation.

   

  Cass, Chris, Victoria, Cristine, Peggy and Susan agreed that what happened with the P Club was not only un-fair treatment but discriminatory.  Cass sent a link of her Youtube video of Chris Penner (the owner of the P Club) telling us not to return to the P Club to the Attorney General's office and to Beth Allen (a lawyer here in Portland who has fought for our rights for years). A week later, Cass had a phone conversation with Beth Allen and decided to proceed further with the case.  Next, BOLI (Bureau of Labor and Industries - they handle civil rights and discrimination cases) called  Cass.  Since she had talked to Beth prior to their call, they stated they needed to work through Beth 

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  Beth requested to meet with some of us on July 25^th to discuss the case with her and representatives from BOLI.  Cass, Chris, Victoria, Cristine, Peggy, and Susan met with Beth and 4 BOLI investigators for about 2 1/2 hours on the 25^th.  It was very educational for all us.  We all felt Beth and BOLI were on our side and that what took place at the P Club was for sure unlawful discrimination.  They also explained to us that Brad Avakian, Commissioner of BOLI, wanted to move forward with this case as a Commissioner’s Complaint.   This means that the commissioner would be the named plaintiff and we would be witnesses.  They explained the process and our options as well as what takes place in a case like this.  Here is a list of what is or may be happening at this point.

   

  1. The case went straight to the top...with the Commissioner of Labor and Industries who will be the Plaintiff in the case

   

  1. BOLI can assess fines and / or monetary damages which both Beth and BOLI are optimistic about both a possible fine and monetary damages; however, we didn't discuss anything about amounts so let’s not even get into it nor do we want to discuss it amongst ourselves. It is NOT our primary motivation! We will simply follow the advice of Beth Allen.

   

  1. Beth Allen will represent the 6 of us that have volunteered as a group (The Rose City T-Girls are not a legal entity) and everything will go through her.

   

  1. Beth is taking the case on a contingency basis.

   

  1. The media has a very good chance of getting involved since this could be a ground breaking case and it will be a Commissioner’s Complaint; which is a rarity.

   

  1. No one in our group will be required to be involved.  It will be on a voluntary basis but if you want to become involved you would need to sign a letter of engagement with Beth. This is a situation where we either need to function together or Beth can only represent one of us.

   

  1. Both Beth and BOLI feel the video is very strong evidence.

   

  1. We are not out to hurt the employees that treated us so well but sometimes we can't control what happens.  We have also learned that this is not Mr. Penner’s first rodeo with BOLI.

   

  9.  We all want to make sure this doesn't continue to happen     to our group. This is the second time this has happened including the Candlelight.

   

  Again everyone...A lot of us support our rights being upheld but there are those that will not agree with our decision to move forward with this, however, Cass, Chris, Susan, Peggy, Cristine and Victoria all agree that we want to move forward with the case. We have the full support of Beth Allen and the State of Oregon. This will be a great thing for our transgender community in the State of Oregon.

   

  If you have any questions that any of us can answer, we certainly will.  And we will keep you posted on what happens in the future.

   

  Thanks…

   

  Cass, Chris, Victoria, Cristine, Susan and Peggy