Nike sued by former employee for discrimination against their gender identity

Jazz Lyles, a former computer engineer of sportswear brand Nike, has sued the company for discrimination. Several employees and managers allegedly refused to address Lyles, who identifies themselves as transmasculine/non-binary, with the correct pronouns. According to CBS News, Lyles is demanding  1.1 million dollars.
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Lyles worked in the Nike headquarters in Oregon. Willamette Week writes that court documents show how Lyles requested the use of the personal pronouns "they/their/them". According to the former employee, colleagues refused to recognize their gender identity. As a transmasculine person, Lyles identifies more with masculinity than with the female gender that they were born with.

According to Willamette Week, internal e-mails show how employees deliberately refused to acknowledge Lyles' gender identity – so-called "misgendering". For example, a colleague responded with "hey girl, what’s up”. And someone told them that the use of other pronouns was against her religious beliefs.

In the end, the bullying of their colleagues was unbearable and they took medical leave. The court files claim that Nike's managers failed to defend Lyles' civil rights, and did not offer Lyles a full-time job, as many other employers would. "Nike had a pattern and practice of turning a blind eye to reported and known harassment," the lawsuit states, "instead blaming the harassed, treating them as the problem and as troublemakers, all the while failing to ever investigate or take corrective action to remedy the harassment."

Greg Rossiter, a Nike spokesperson, tells Willamette Week that the company is not commenting on Lyles' case. In defence of a previous complaint at the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, Nike's lawyer stated that Lyles was a “mediocre” contractor with a “limited skill set". That complaint was eventually withdrawn in order to start the current lawsuit.

 

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