Transgender employee fired by state awaits ruling

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By Christian Boone

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Vandy Beth Glenn still has the box she packed more than three years ago after being told to empty out her office.

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Vandy Beth Glenn was hired as a man in 2005 and fired roughly two years later after informing a supervisor she was undergoing gender transition. Last August she was ordered reinstated with full salary, benefits and seniority, but the state appealed the federal judge's ruling.

Christian Boone, cboone@ajc.com Vandy Beth Glenn was hired as a man in 2005 and fired roughly two years later after informing a supervisor she was undergoing gender transition. Last August she was ordered reinstated with full salary, benefits and seniority, but the state appealed the federal judge's ruling.

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Though the legislative editor -- hired as a man in 2005 and fired roughly two years later after informing a supervisor she was undergoing gender transition -- was reinstated last August, the box remains untouched.

On Tuesday, Glenn's attorneys filed papers in the U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, defending a lower court's ruling that their client was a victim of sexual harassment. U.S. District Judge Richard Story ordered Glenn be reinstated with full salary, benefits and seniority; she agreed to stay home pending the state's appeal.

"It is clear Vandy Beth Glenn was fired because her boss didn’t like her as she is. That is unfair and illegal", said her attorney, Greg Nevins. "The law is on our side here, but transgender employees are still vulnerable to sex discrimination from their employers who don’t understand it."

The boss who fired Glenn, Georgia General Assembly legislative counsel Sewell Brumby, is still technically her supervisor.

"It makes me think about things I don’t like to think about, particularly at work … I think it’s unsettling to think of someone dressed in women’s clothing with male sexual organs inside that clothing,” Brumby said in a 2009 deposition.

He has refused comment since Glenn filed suit. The state's attorneys have also declined interview requests.

"I am resolved to see this case to the end," Glenn said. "No one should be fired for no good reason like I was."

She likely will have to wait a while. A ruling on the state's appeal could take years, Nevins said last August.