I could see WALMART doing this….but  Saks  Fifth Avenue???

Leyth O. Jamal, a transgender woman living in Texas, has filed a federal lawsuit against her former employer, Saks Fifth Avenue, alleging that she was exposed to a hostile working environment at the luxury department store’s Houston-area location, reports local news station KPRC.

In a statement from her attorney, Jamal describes being harassed and belittled by coworkers, being forced to use the men’s restroom, withstanding intentional and repeated use of male pronouns by her coworkers, and ultimately being fired. Following this alleged mistreatment, she filed a claim of workplace discrimination with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Amendment of 1964, including protecting workers from sex-based discrimination. Full story at ADVOCATE.

Attorneys for the company also blatantly misgendered Jamal in court documents and alleged the retailer isn’t bound by its own nondiscrimination policy, which covers transgender workers.

BuzzFeed reports:

“Saks’ arguments are hugely concerning to us,” the director of HRC’s Workplace Equality Program, Deena Fidas, said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed News. “In its court filings, Saks attempts to secure a motion to dismiss Ms. Jamal’s allegations by simultaneously calling into question the validity of its own non-discrimination policy and the larger, crucial protections afforded by Title VII.”

Regarding its Corporate Equality Index, an effort to alert consumers to pro-LGBT or anti-LGBT policies of companies, Fidas added: “The policies our CEI advances are not window dressings for any company to prop up or disregard in the face of individual allegations of misconduct. Saks is publicly undercutting the applicability of its own policies reported in the CEI and we must suspend Saks’ CEI score until further notice.”

A huge backlash AGAINST  SAKS  has already started.