Is that a stethoscope in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? ABC Los Angeles affiliate KABC reports that a transgender nursing student is suing a California university for gender discrimination after the school expelled her.
Domaine Javier, 25, is seeking $500,000 in damages from California Baptist University in Riverside, claiming that the school “expelled her for one reason: she is transgender.”
But the university’s attorneys tell a different story. They maintain that the young woman was ejected as a result of “fraud, or concealing identity.” Despite her female self-identity, Javier still has a penis.
Cal Baptist might never have been any the wiser had Javier not chosen to appear on an MTV show called “True Life” in August 2011 to discuss the stigma experienced by transgender people. It was during the filming of the episode that she revealed she is biologically male. But that’s not how she identified herself on the application form when she sought to enroll in the school’s nursing program.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Javier told a local newspaper, The Press-Enterprise. “They said, ‘On your application form you put female.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s how I see myself.’”
Javier’s attorney, Paul Southwick, insists that Cal Baptist besmirched his client’s good name, telling The Press-Enterprise, “They’ve falsely accused her of fraud and of concealing her identity. She was humiliated and forced to delay her education and career.”
In its student literature, if not its name, the university makes it clear that it embraces Christian principles, including a traditional definition of “family.” Whether this will play a role in the outcome of the case remains to be seen.
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