Day Care Teachers Tell EEOC Their Firing Over Treatment of Transgender Child Was Religious Discrimination

At a news conference yesterday, high-profile Houston, Texas attorney Andy Taylor said that he has filed a discrimination complaint with the EEOC on behalf of the manager of a day care center who says she was fired because of her treatment of a 6-year old transgender child, and on behalf of her co-worker who was also fired.  As reported by KPRC News and the Houston Chronicle, Christian author Madeline Kirksey was fired from her Children's Lighthouse Learning Center position after she refused to comply with the instructions of the girl's male same-sex parents who said that the child, who had enrolled at the beginning of the year as a girl, should now be treated as a boy and called by a new masculine name.  Kirksey said that her religious beliefs made her approval of the change impossible.  She also contended that she had a duty to protect the child from possible bullying, and objected to the change being made without parents of others in the class first being informed.  At the press conference, attorney Taylor said in part:

To inflict upon a little 6-year-old girl the heavy decision of her sexual identity is nothing short of child abuse..... Can you only imagine the reaction of a couple of dozen 6-year-olds when they learn that Sally is all of a sudden Johnny? They may think this is a cruel game of opposite day. And are we going to have little girls running into boys' restrooms and little boys running into girls restrooms?

A spokesman for the Learning Center said that Kirksey and her co-worker were fired for other reasons and that their attorneys are misrepresenting the facts of the case.