CD SUES WINN-DIXIE




NTAC PRESS RELEASE



Imagine your place of employment notifies you that you're being fired.
When you ask their reason, the reply is, "we didn't like what you wore at
home the other night." Far-fetched? Not in the eyes of Peter Oiler. And not in the
eyes of Winn-Dixie, Inc. - the nation's sixth largest supermarket. Oiler, a 21-year
employee with Winn-Dixie's suburban New Orleans distribution center, was
fired for being a crossdresser. The retailer claims Oiler, 45, a truck driver with
a good employment record, was "bad for Winn-Dixie's image," said Eric Ferrero,
a spokesman for American Civil Liberties Union, which sued Winn Dixie in federal
court in November on sex discrimination charges. Oiler didn't violate company
regulations by wearing female attire at work. He also doesn't behave effeminately.
He was simply honest with his supervisor about wearing women's attire away from work.

Two years ago, rumors that Oiler was gay circulated around the workplace.
Oiler approached management to have the rumors stopped. During a
review this past year, the supervisor inquired as to why that bothered him so much.

"Because I'm not gay," said Oiler, who is married and heterosexual. "I'm transgendered."
After his supervisor contacted the corporate office, he asked Oiler to resign. Oiler refused
and was fired two months later. In his lawsuit, Oiler said female employees of Winn Dixie
can wear men's clothes off duty without any consequences. He claims he was fired
him "because he failed to conform to the corporation's stereotyped notions of how a man
ought to look and act." "I never expected Winn-Dixie to approve of my personal life or to
punish me for it," said Oiler. "I just never thought it had any bearing on how I do my job."

Courtney Sharp, a transgender activist from New Orleans, said job performance is not
an issue. "The immediate issue is that Winn-Dixie claims that Oiler's crossdressing
outside of the workplace, on his own time, was harmful to their corporate image," she said.
Many men and women may fail to meet Winn-Dixie's gender expectations and may be
affected by this type of discrimination." The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition
is supporting Oiler's case because an individual's freedom to express themselves in their
personal lives is a basic human right. The organization said transgendered individuals
face an inordinate amount of discrimination when transitioning in the workplace.

"To fire a valuable employee with years of good evaluations merely for off-site
crossdressing is an unfair business practice," said coalition secretary Anne Casebeer.
"As an employer, I can state that there is no logical corporate justification for this action."

The organization is calling for a boycott of all Winn-Dixie and Thriftway Stores
across the nation and plans for protests in some areas. It also encourages everyone
to take a pro-active stance by writing Winn-Dixie's corporate offices and
expressing your displeasure over this patently unfair termination.


The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition is the nation's leading transgender
civil rights organization. NTAC works for the advancement of understanding and the
attainment of civil rights for all transgendered & intersexed people in every aspect of society.