Dani Davis told a superior at Walmart that a man screamed anti-trans epithets while she was alone in the bathroom. Walmart fired her after she reported what happened.

Summary

Walmart fired Dani Davis, a 6’4" cisgender woman, after a man who mistook her for transgender verbally threatened her in a women’s restroom at a Florida store.

Davis, visibly shaken, reported the March 14 incident to her immediate supervisor but was fired for not informing salaried management, allegedly creating a “security risk.”

Davis called the firing discriminatory. After viral backlash, Walmart offered to reinstate her with back pay.

Davis, a longtime employee, is uncertain about returning, citing fears of a hostile work environment.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.eeEnglish
    91·
    2 days ago

    1. I used to work for Wal-Mart, this doesn’t surprise me. They actually tried to have me written up for using a women’s room as a transgender woman and decided not to only because I pointed out that that would be discrimination under the law (Trump wasn’t president at the time) My days with the company were pretty much numbered after that. They’re not looking for workers, they’re looking for slaves; anyone who thinks they have rights aren’t slaves.

    2. Isn’t it obvious? The reason they want to criminalize transpeople, someone who’s already an “invisible minority” is because any “Woke” behavior can be classified as “Trans” behavior… And anything the state doesn’t like can be classified as “Woke”, the Nazis actually did this by banning the teaching of any science and philosophy that was deemed to be too Jewish… Which was a net positive for the world for the sole reason of this meaning that Hitler never had the atomic bomb (He could have, but then he called the science behind it “Jewish Superstition masquerading as science.” and ordered it halted)

    • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      18·
      2 days ago

      i worked at that W place and i did 3rd shift maintenance. cleaning, buffing floors, bathrooms. as the person cleaning the shitters you block the entrance. that never stopped a kentucky boy psycho with a gigantic knife. i quit the job after i encountered that trash fucker. just not a chill place to work. the general public are awful.

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
    83·
    2 days ago

    Transphobia rots the brain. The fact the store still fired her is insane. I hope she just takes them to court instead of taking her old job back.

          • octopus_ink@slrpnk.netEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            If it were easy we wouldn’t need lawyers.

            Edit: Yeah, no one would believe this caused emotional distress. /s

            Around 8 p.m. on March 14, she wrote that she was alone in a stall in the women’s restroom when she heard a man yelling.

            “The voice was much louder than simply someone yelling in from the door. This man was fully IN the restroom, yelling something about” transgender women, Davis wrote.

            Davis said the man yelled he was going to “beat" them and was going to “protect his wife/girlfriend from them” while his wife or girlfriend was pleading with him to stop and leave before he got into trouble.

            Davis wrote she was scared and froze, not knowing if the man was going to physically attack her.

            “I was the only one in there so it seemed pretty clear that he saw me enter the restroom and he assumed that I am trans because of my height,” Davis recalled. “It was terrifying and I wish no one else ever had an experience like that.”

            The man eventually left, and Davis was able to leave the restroom and return to her workstation.

            “My immediate supervisor came by and noticed that I was visibly shaken and emotional. After taking a few moments to calm myself down, I told her what had happened. I didn’t go home since it wasn’t long until my shift was done (10 p.m.),” Davis wrote. “Less than a week later, I was fired.”

            The reason given for her termination was that she did not report the incident to a salaried management employee and, therefore, created a security risk.

            “I took it to mean that I was the security risk because someone had mistaken me for trans,” Davis told the Washington Post.

            Davis said she was devastated. Because of the anti-LGBTQ+ climate in Florida, she had been planning on leaving the state. But now, she doesn’t know after losing the job.

            She appealed the termination through Walmart’s internal review process but was denied. She filed for unemployment insurance but also took her story to Facebook, where it soon went viral.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
      428·
      3 days ago

      Do… do you think…

      That a person working… at Walmart…

      … has the financial resources…

      … to sue Walmart?

        • bss03@infosec.pubEnglish
          19·
          2 days ago

          Agreed. The misogyny is clear, even ignoring any hint of trans issues. But, I don’t know what a settlement would look like and how much effort it would be to fight WMT lawyers.

          • humorlessrepost@lemmy.worldEnglish
            9·
            2 days ago

            Yeah, in a strictly financial sense, they already offered to make her whole. IANAL but I doubt this would be the million-dollar suit that I wish it were.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
          39·
          2 days ago

          Morgan and Morgan is from Florida, they might be the largest firm in the world and take cases for improper firings. Usually they take their cases on the basis of you won’t pay anything unless you win. I’m sure they’d love that case

          • Maeve@midwest.social
            3·
            2 days ago

            The firm that advertises themselves as "good Catholics, who had as many children as they could, beginning immediately after they got married”? Yeaaaah.

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
              3·
              2 days ago

              Oh I’m sure they aren’t great people. They make most of their money off swindling insurance companies for huge settlement offers due to work/car injuries. That said, if you’re trying to get a huge settlement from Walmart, they are probably a good bet though. Also I know they turned down a case years ago when my dad went to them about his mother. She had surgery where there was no cartilage left in her ankle. They decided to screw her ankle to her foot essentially making it unable to move but reduce the pain. When she was in recovery they kept forcing her to get up and walk on it and she kept saying it hurt to much. Weeks into the rehab they said she wasn’t trying to put in the work. Then after a lot of arguing we finally got them to do new X-rays. Of course they found hairline fractures around the screws they placed. The insurance company/Medicaid and what not all said they wouldn’t cover any rehab time after the fractures were found because that time was used up during the period they were trying to force her to walk on a botched surgery. Morgan and Morgan turned down the case, and she reverse mortgaged her house to cover the rehab time. America at its finest

          • AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works
            6·
            2 days ago

            And they’re willing to take on big corporations - iirc they were representing Austin’s mom after he was killed in the monorail accident at Magic Kingdom 17 or 18 years ago this July (damn I can’t believe it’s been that long). She ended up settling out of court, it was really an awful situation.

      • Kalysta@lemm.ee
        2·
        2 days ago

        For something like this you likely could find a lawyer to do this pro bono. Maybe even the ACLU would get involved.

    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      2 days ago

      Can she sure Walmart, though? It’s shocking what employers can get away with. I’ve been wronged before, and had lawyers tell me there’s little they can do.

  • LupusBlackfur@lemmy.world
    351·
    3 days ago

    Haven’t set foot in a Walmart in years…

    Several reasons I refuse to do business with them.

    This is just affirming some of those reasons.

    Fuck Walmart.

    🙄 🤡 🖕 🖕

  • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
    38·
    2 days ago

    I would boycott Walmart but I already started boycotting them over a decade ago. I understand some people in tight financial situations need the lower prices they can get from places like Walmart. And therefore they cannot so freely boycott such a place but if you’re somebody who can avoid it I would advise steering clear of that shit hole. Their policies are trash and the family that owns it are oligarchical douche bags.

    • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      13·
      2 days ago

      This falls under “suffer on my own terms” for me. I won’t go to Walmart, so we’re going without extras. There’s no cheese in my house right now because none was on sale at my local grocery store. So instead of going to Walmart, or paying $4 for a block of Cabot cheddar at my grocer, the choice is go without cheese for the time being.

      Used to shop minimally at Walmart anyway, now I refuse to go. I go to my local co-op 2ce a week now though.

      Bulk spices are cheap y’all.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 days ago

    Being a cis woman does not automatically mean someone is straight; gender identity (cisgender) and sexual orientation (straight) are distinct concepts, and a cis woman can be of any sexual orientation. I didn’t know exactly what a cis-someone was so I searched the web for that.

      • cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        3·
        1 day ago

        in fact they come from the same Latin roots! “trans-” = “on the other side of”, “cis-” = “on the same side of.” Useful to know as some will use the word “transgender” and take offense to being labeled “cisgender” - if one word is valid, they both are.

        • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
          3·
          1 day ago

          Thanks, I was actually looking for that and just couldn’t figure it out. Not in the entire 2 minutes I had to make that happen at lunch.

    • skisnow@lemmy.caEnglish
      72·
      2 days ago

      “As of 2024, the Adolph Coors Foundation is the only one of the three organizations still publicly disclosing support for the conservative group.”

      The fucking WHAT Coors Foundation?

  • greenfire@lemmings.worldEnglish
    641·
    3 days ago

    omg let’s go after everybody that doesn’t fit some kind of white heteronormative cookie cutter idea of humanity

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
    16·
    3 days ago

    The company does not have your best interest in mind, ever. I’m going to guess the supervisor she opened up to is going to get fired now for not reporting or something.

  • cley_faye@lemmy.world
    922·
    2 days ago

    So, she was fired because… some dude was wrong?

    Our society really likes to shit on women all the time, doesn’t it?

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
      10·
      2 days ago

      This is also taking place in Florida. A state that began horrible and has just doubled down on it in the last 20 years.

      • Tail11@lemmy.world
        8·
        2 days ago

        In 1977, Anita Bryant famously led the campaign claiming to “save the children from gays” during a vote in Miami-Dade County. While the law she supported was later overturned, Florida has long had a history of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment.

    • GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world
      56·
      2 days ago

      She was fired because a man (without affiliation with walmart) entered the women’s restroom and verbally assaulted her. He wasn’t just factually wrong assuming that a woman can’t be tall, he entered a space that he knew he wasnt supposed to enter.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        141·
        2 days ago

        Men entering women’s restrooms to use the restroom: Nightmarishly immoral

        Men entering women’s restrooms to harm a woman: Laudable and in the spirit of their Dear Leader

        In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Amy Dorris alleged that Trump accosted her outside the bathroom in his VIP box at the tournament in New York on 5 September 1997.

    • InputZero@lemmy.world
      36·
      2 days ago

      And low wage employees. It’s cheaper and easier to fire an employee than to confront a customer about their mistake. Remember kids, your job is only one crazy person’s ranting away from being taken away.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
      78·
      2 days ago

      making sure there are no “biological males” stalking and harassing “biological females”… by stalking and harassing them himself. every accusation is a confession.

          • andros_rex@lemmy.world
            10·
            2 days ago

            Yes. It’s an amazing video, as every single video he’s made is - most TERFs use the same rhetorical strategies, and knowing how Posie Parker’s brain works teaches you a lot about how the TERF brain works. It’s conspiratorial delusions (trans women are hiding every where in secret to try to sexually assault cis women, big pharma is pushing people to become permanent patients, therapists hate butch lesbians and masculine women so much that they tell them they have to be men) which they are attempt to use to explain their generalized sense of fear and anxiety.

            They aren’t the Serena Joy’s but the “feminist” orgs who teamed up with her. Everyone forgets one of the lessons of Handmaid’s Tale - anti porn feminists teaming up with conservatives are what start the ball rolling. (A lot of TERF bloggers celebrate state porn id laws without realizing that lesbianism in itself will be considered pornographic).

      • michaelmrose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        712·
        2 days ago

        Because he was harassing women in the bathroom. He is literally what people like him, the right, say they are worried about. To reiterate a man entered the women’s restroom to harass a woman because he erroneously believed she was in his opinion a man in a woman’s restroom.

        • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          725·
          2 days ago

          the whole distinction between men’s and women’s bathrooms is absurd. there’s no bath in there. piss, shit, wash your hands, get out. puke if you gotta. in theory it’s a sanitary place. oh dear, a man was being a creep. shout it out, don’t be a weirdo monster in the place where people do business

      • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        6·
        2 days ago

        Or possibly a cat. Or a dog. Or one of the many other animals that really care about pissing spots.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        6·
        2 days ago

        If he was there to void himself, wash his hands, or check his grooming or anything else that one would consider an intended purpose of restrooms I would agree (except for the hypocricy)

        However not only was he not in there to do any of that, he was in there to engage in hostility towards people who were in there to do that. And beyond that, he did so in a hypocritical way.