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.

          • octopus_ink@slrpnk.netEnglish
            2·
            3 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·
      4 days ago

      Do… do you think…

      That a person working… at Walmart…

      … has the financial resources…

      … to sue Walmart?

        • bss03@infosec.pubEnglish
          19·
          4 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·
            4 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·
          4 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·
            4 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·
              4 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·
            4 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·
        3 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·
      3 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.