Suit Against Winn-Dixie Dropped: A man fired because he sometimes dressed in women's clothing on his own time, in his own home has dropped his lawsuit against the company, saying he did not think he could win in the nation's conservative political environment. Peter Oiler, a trucker driver for supermarket giant Winn-Dixie was told that if word "leaked out" that he was a cross-dresser, it could hurt the company's reputation and result in a loss of business. The 23 year employee of the company has been battling Winn-Dixie for more than two years. A federal judge ruled against Peter Oiler last September and refused to reconsider the case in November.
Oiler said further defeats might have set back anti-discrimination efforts for gays and the transgendered. "I'm afraid I would have done more harm to the cause than good," he told The AP in an interview. [....] Congress has refused 31 times to amend the law to ban discrimination because of gender or sexual identity, and it is not the federal court's job to dictate policy, Africk ruled.
And so it ends.
I feel sorry for Mr Oiler, I really do. Nobody should lose their job because they have engaged in entirely legal activities in their off-work hours.
That said, as I may have mentioned once or twice or even maybe even three times in the past two years, Oiler seemed to have been badly served by the ACLU. Not only that, but the laws he was using not only did not reach his case; as noted above in the article text, Congress has repeatedly and emphatically refused to extend those laws to this type of case. (31 times would count as "goddammit, we said NO!" in just about any terms, I shoud think.) I don't understand why this wasn't a simple civil suit for breach of privacy or damages or something like that. ANYTHING but an employment discrimination case could probably have gone forward and resulted in some sort of win for Mr Oiler -- even though it was, indisputably and undisputedly, employment discrimination.
Posted by iain at January 14, 2003 04:39 PMComments
He should have kept his personal business at home and not being it to work. It could be considered sexual harrassment to discuss his crossdressing with other employee's.
Posted by John Freeman at June 17, 2003 09:29 PM
