“A former University of Michigan medical center employee will receive $410,000 in a settlement after the hospital illegally terminated her for refusing to use preferred pronouns and refer patients for transgender drugs or surgeries,” reports The College Fix.
Under the settlement, University of Michigan Health-West is also required to adopt a religious accommodations policy. Under it, staff cannot be compelled to use pronouns or to participate in gender transition treatments if doing so would violate their religious beliefs.
The settlement was announced by First Liberty, a nonprofit legal group representing former University of Michigan medical staffer Valerie Kloosterman.
A federal appeals court allowed her to sue, rejecting claims that her lawsuit was barred by an arbitration clause. She brought a lawsuit, alleging that her firing after 17 years of dedicated service violated the Constitution’s Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses, and the religious discrimination provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In the appeals court’s majority opinion, Judge Eric Murphy noted that, “Even apart from her religion, Kloosterman also believes that puberty-blocking drugs and sex-reassignment surgeries do not qualify as proper health care as a matter of her medical judgment. Yet the training would have required her to affirm statements inconsistent with these opinions on threat of termination.”
Kloosterman, who worked as a physician’s assistant, said the settlement with the university protects employees’ ability to “provide excellent care consistent with their medical judgment, because all patients are created in the image of God.”
“All I wanted to do was provide the best care possible to my patients without being forced to violate my Christian beliefs,” she added.
Kayla Toney, Counsel at First Liberty, said employers cannot punish employees because of their faith under Title VII.
“Valerie is an exceptional physician assistant who cares for each of her patients. Employers cannot drive out people like Valerie just because of their sincere religious beliefs. We are grateful to have resolved this matter with University of Michigan Health-West,” she added.
First Liberty Institute filed the lawsuit four years ago, describing how hospital officials tried to force Kloosterman to agree to use patients’ preferred pronouns and make referrals for “gender transition” services against her religious convictions.
Kloosterman’s lawsuit noted that “no patient ever asked her for a referral for such drugs or procedures, and she never used pronouns contrary to a patient’s wishes.”
Still, university officials fired her after she requested religious accommodation.
Officials called her “evil” and a “liar” and “mockingly told her that she could not take the Bible or her religious beliefs to work with her, and blamed her for gender dysphoria-related suicides.”
Transgender medical procedures can harm people’s health, despite being labeled as “gender affirming care.” 95% of young transgender people on testosterone develop pelvic floor dysfunction; most have bowel issues and sexual dysfunction. As the Telegraph reported, “Around 87 per cent…had urinary symptoms such as incontinence, frequent toilet visits and bed-wetting, while 74 per cent had bowel issues including constipation or being unable to hold stools or wind in. Some 53 per cent suffered from sexual dysfunction…Almost half had an ‘orgasm disorder’, while a quarter suffered from pain during sexual intercourse.”
Transgender treatments can lead to a lifetime of pain, discomfort, and medications. As Britain’s National Health Service explains, hormones “need to be taken for the rest of your life, even if you have gender surgery.” An FDA official who supported giving minors puberty blockers conceded that they actually increase suicidality. Indeed, the “FDA knew ‘gender affirming’ puberty blockers increase ‘suicidality’ in 2017,” reported Just the News. The FDA has also warned that puberty blockers can cause brain swelling and permanent vision loss.
Even the transgender lawyer who challenged Tennessee’s restrictions on transgender treatments for kids admitted to the Supreme Court that “completed suicide is thankfully and admittedly rare” among transgender youth not given “gender-affirming” treatment, and that “there is no evidence…that this [transgender-affirming] treatment reduces completed suicide.” The ACLU’s Chase Strangio admitted that to the Supreme Court.
Yet doctors who did sex changes often falsely told parents that they needed to give their kids a sex change to keep them from committing suicide, even though this isn’t true. One of America’s most prominent gender doctors, “Dr. Olson-Kennedy disclosed to how she speaks with parents of gender dysphoric patients: ‘We often ask parents, “Would you rather have a dead son than a live daughter?’”
