Back in good ol 2010, Rachel Tudor was “lucky” enough to experience the true challenge of discrimination when her place of work – Southeastern Oklahoma State University – put her through hell and back. After Rachel was brave enough to go through the transformation that would allow her to live as her true self, her place of work decided to make things more difficult by submitting her to some of the worst bigotry and discrimination in the history of bigotry and discrimination.
To begin with, The Regional University System of Oklahoma singled out Tudor by forcing her to follow strict dress codes that other employees did not have to follow. To make matters even worse, they restricted her to one fucking bathroom. As a female transgender process server in Oklahoma City, Tinsley Keefe is very familiar with the overwhelming bigotry that taints Oklahoma. Tudor’s story appalls Tinsley, as she can sympathize all too well.
Using bathrooms as a member of the transgender community is already difficult enough. Assholes are constantly sharing their prejudiced opinion on the matter; making something as simple as going to the bathroom into something tragic and at times, dangerous.
Fortunately, the seven years that Tudor struggled through fighting her case finally paid off. Back when the incident first occurred in 2010, Tudor took her case to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – an organization dedicated to handling federal civil right disputes in the workplace. After deducing that Tudor was right in her move to escalate her experience thanks to the Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the commission referred her case to the Justice Department’s Employment Litigation Section.
Sadly, at the time of the referral, the Obama administration did not cover litigations involving gender identity. It was not until December 2014, when an announcement came about explaining that gender identity would be covered in future litigations, that Tudor’s case began to rise again. With months and years of hard work, Tudor and her team were finally making progress . . . until, of course, the Trump administration decided to fuck things up like they always do.
Earlier this year, August to be exact, the Justice Department withdrew from the case with an announcement claiming the department would no longer construe Title VII to cover transgender workers. Can you say “what the fuck”? Still, Tudor was persistent in her mission to fight for the equal rights of transgenders – in the workplace and in general.
Carrying on the case with attorney Ezra Young, Tudor was finally given a break in the case this past Monday when the jury finally released a verdict that played in Tudor’s favor; awarding her over $1 million dollars.
Tinsley, exercising her ability to be an amazing Oklahoma process server, served the papers in the case happily. And as a transgender OKC process server, Tinsley reminds us that the world we live in is only getting more fucked up as the days go on. It is time we put an end to discrimination because we are all human in the end.
