Former employee files transgender discrimination suit against Valve
The litigant is seeking more than $3 million in damages as compensation for Valve allegedly creating a hostile work environment.
Alleging that Valve created a hostile work environment following her reassignment surgery, a former employee is suing the Steam platform creator for $3.1 million in damages.
The report comes from editors at Polygon, who got their hands on paperwork concerning the lawsuit. The litigant, identified only by her initials, worked on-site at Valve as a translator until sometime in 2012, when she informed Valve of her intention to go through with gender reassignment surgery, and that she would need to relocate to Los Angeles to be close to her doctors after surgery. Valve approved her request and allowed her to work from home while recovering.
Valve's consent came with a condition: since the now-former employee would no longer be on-site, she had to be reclassified internally as a contractor rather than a salaried worker.
Everything proceeded normally from there, until the translator accused Valve of—in her view—exploiting other translators who, per the lawsuit, were unpaid due to "false promises" by the company. She filed a written complaint, and was fired days later, in early 2016.
Here's where things get complicated. Valve and the litigant tell conflicting versions of events surrounding her firing: Valve says she was not terminated, but rather, her job was being relocated to Washington State where she worked before moving to Los Angeles for her surgery and recovery period. "However, when the Plaintiff [former employee] offered to relocate back to Washington, Defendant [Valve] refused," per the lawsuit paperwork. (This paragraph was revised for clarity.)
The former employee maintains that she was fired for filing her official complaint regarding unpaid translators, and because her supervisor was uncomfortable with her following her reassignment, allegedly referring to her as "it" on more than one occasion.
On April 12, she filed a lawsuit for $3.1 million in damages: $1 million for general damages, $1 million for special damages, $1 million for loss of earnings, and $150,000 for penalties and unpaid wages.
Valve issued a written response on May 20 and denied every allegation, asking for the complaint to be tossed.
Source: Polygon
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replyDavid Craddock posted a new article, Former employee files transgender discrimination suit against Valve
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Punishing discrimination has been going on for a long time now. There are plenty of laws on the book protecting against it already.
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What do you mean? It is an ongoing process, which is why gay marriage was infront of the supreme court recently as well as gay cakes and many other issues regarding discrimination and protected (or unprotected in this case) classes. It isn't a solved issue. Not sure what you're point is.
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There are discrimination laws for both male and female or any sexual orientation (which has no bearing at work), so there are plenty of lawsuits from people claiming discrimination no matter what gender they are.
Are you saying there are loopholes that prevent the transgendered from being protected against discrimination? -
Too bad you have fake cake dudes looking for their 15 seconds of fame.
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good for them. that process will play out how those states feel it should for them. life goes on. such and such. the other thing here is when do you stop catering to the various groups of people feeling they're discriminated against? these affected groups are smaller and smaller as each takes issue with <insert offending problem here>. i sincerely doubt the population of transgender is anywhere near the number of homosexuals.
what if suddenly all the left handed people complained that doors need to hinge from the other direction? because they feel discriminated against by all the right handed people. or not enough products are made for left handed people.
it's getting old and tired to hear the same arguments over and over and over...just swap out the affected group of people's label/name/category/whatever from the same sentences. the reality we all live in and most people choose to accept is that everyone, every creature, every entity on this planet is inherently different....period. get the fuck over it.-
Laws that protect people exist specifically to combat the fact that much of society seems to be incapable of saying "Everyone is different, no big."
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I really don't understand this paragraph:
Here's where things get complicated. Valve claims she was "fired" only because she had recovered and would be relocating to Washington State, where the company is based. In other words, she'd be reclassified, as she was when making the jump from salary to contractual. But the litigant says she offered to move only for Valve to dismiss her permanently.-
Sorry! I reread that paragraph and it was more confusing the third time around. I've revised it for clarity; the story should update within the next few minutes.
The gist of what happened was this: Valve claimed the former employee wasn't being fired; they were reclassifying her and relocating her back to HQ in Washington State. But she says that when she offered to relocate, Valve fired her with no intention of relocating her or hiring her back.-
Thanks that reads much better!
There's the risk of becoming a contractor. I feel like she doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.-
Ya, this doesn't seem to give her much ground to stand on. If you allow yourself to get classified as a contractor, and your contract basically allow the company to cancel your contract for any reason and w/o prior notice, then well that's how it works when you're self employed. And, I think even if they went through a contracting company, there was probably enough legal language in that contract so they could probably do the same thing. Just let her go w/o prior notice.
If any of that is even remotely close, I don't see how she has much legal legs to stand on.-
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So this person asked to move to a new city and keep their job. Valve generously accommodates the request and reclassified them as a contractor so they can work from home.
As a thank you our hero files a formal complaint about valve not paying other translators (?) and valve says "lol okay that's enough" and the person is let go.
They better have that "it" stuff documented in emails or something or this one is gonna get tossed in a hurry.-
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Professionally speaking, it's a regional thing: American English says put punctuation in quotes; in British English, they go outside in the cold.
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Understandable. I've talked about this before, but my approach is to follow client guidelines. You want punctuation outside of quotes? You got it. As long as the check clears.
Also, I've found I can unlearn any writing habit if given enough time. I had a helluva time adjusting to single spaces after sentences. Now, I can't stand double spaces. It look at them and think, "Why are you wasting so much space?!"
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Despite being born and raised in the United States, I'm constantly discovering that many of my spelling and grammar inclinations are on the British side. Aside from adding 'u' where it isn't needed, because that's just silly.
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lol, fuck you.
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ANEURYSM
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Sounds helpful
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Fuckin atoada so, man. Fuckin atoada so.
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This literally drove me crazy
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Their you have it.
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You forgot "could of", "would of", and "should of"
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I'm shaking.
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I wonder if she's falling on a sword for these folks:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/44yl24/how_a_whole_language_of_the_steam_translation/ -
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Are you purposely avoiding saying her or she? Just curious.
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It's the whole post.
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Ya, if she got moved to contractor with a standard agreement, even if they went through a contracting company, Valve probably has all the legal room they need to basically just terminate her contract w/o prior notice and not have to really give a reason as to why. You can't really get "fired" from a contract role. They can cancel your contract, or ask the service to replace you, etc. I think she may be trying to confuse it simply because she was a former employee. Sounds like she rolled the dice on the contract and lost.
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Well they probably pay a lot of moneys
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A modern-day Auschwitz
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are initial court filings usually this sparse of exhibits?
http://www.polygon.com/2016/5/24/11761242/valve-former-employee-lawsuit-transgender-discrimination-
The initial pleadings many times wont have any exhibits at all. That'll all come out in discovery.
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The report comes from editors at Polygon, who got their hands on paperwork concerning the lawsuit.
Their hands must have been on it while trying to capture that Doom footage.
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