Ga. transgender woman files $3M lawsuit against AT&T alleging discrimination, wrongful termination

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A transgender woman from Cumming has filed a $3 million lawsuit against AT&T, alleging she faced a pattern of discrimination and was eventually fired after coming out.

According to the lawsuit, Robyn Casias was a “highly regarded ‘star’ employee” for 16 years at the telecommunications company while presenting as a married man with three children.

Casias worked as a senior project architect at AT&T, but after she announced her transition at a company meeting, “things changed drastically,” and she became an “unwanted and unwelcomed outcast who was refused substantive work for three years and then terminated,” the lawsuit claims.

Casias started working for AT&T in 2001 as a senior member of its technical staff, and was promoted in 2006 and 2012, according to the complaint.

During that time, the lawsuit states Casias presented as a man and conformed to male gender norms for work purposes.

“She outwardly appeared as a man, and as a man, enjoyed tremendous success at AT&T,” the lawsuit claims.

In March 2017, Casias fully transitioned to her family, friends and the community in Cumming, and “went outside every day in her community as ‘Robyn,’” but continued to present as a man at work for fear of retaliation, according to the lawsuit.

In June 2017, Casias traveled to Dallas for a company meeting, where she revealed her transgender status to colleagues, feeling secure enough to come out because of her long, successful career at the company and after receiving a service excellence award a few months before.

Casias presented as male for the first two days of the meeting, but on the third day she “courageously decided to unveil her true self and communicate her gender transition.” She put on a dress, makeup and nail polish and revealed her transition to colleagues, some of whom reacted with shock and anger, the lawsuit claims.

After returning to Georgia, Casias “made her formal reintroduction to the workplace as Robyn” and announced her transition to coworkers via email.

“The long and successful career she had enjoyed at AT&T while presenting as male came to a screeching, unlawful halt thereafter,” the lawsuit claims.

The complaint goes on to describe a years-long pattern of alleged discrimination. Casias claims the company took her off projects she’d been assigned before her transition, stopped asg her projects and instead, reassigned her to istrative duties, excluded her from company meetings, and promoted non-transgender coworkers over her, “despite the fact that they were far less qualified and experienced.”

At one point, a colleague asked if they could anonymously report the alleged discrimination to AT&T’s Equal Employment Office (EEO). Casias agreed, and soon afterward, she met with the company’s HR transgender representative to discuss “the ongoing discrimination that had been occurring since her official transition.”

After the meeting, the HR representative followed up with Casias to say the “case was closed” and “insisted that she could not disclose the findings of the investigation to her.”

But according to the lawsuit, the discrimination continued, and in 2019, Casias was not assigned projects for months at a time and was “inexplicably assigned to a ing role as a business analyst,” for which she wasn’t experienced.

Casias frequently reported the alleged discrimination to company HR during this period, the lawsuit claims.

In April 2020, Casias applied for a senior position at AT&T subsidiary Cricket Wireless but was alarmed when her manager asked her who the hiring manager was, according to the complaint.

Casias feared the manager “planned to sabotage” her chances of getting the position “in retaliation for her continued complaints of gender discrimination.” Less than a month later, Casias was told she didn’t get the job at Cricket Wireless.

In July 2020, Casias’ manager called to say she was being terminated because she “was ‘on the surplus,’ and curtly informed her that her last day would be July 24, 2020.”

Casias “felt sick to her stomach and responded, ‘how do you expect me to find work outside of AT&T as a transgender woman?’” The manager responded “coldly and insincerely apologized,” repeated that Casias’ last day would be July 24, 2020, and ended the call, according to the complaint.

Casias soon filed a complaint with AT&T’s HR department, claiming she was unlawfully terminated because she believed she was fired over her gender and in retaliation and for her repeated complaints of discrimination.

According to the lawsuit, an AT&T investigator got back to Casias and assured her the company “didn’t find anything” to her claim.

Casias is seeking $3 million in damages plus legal fees from AT&T.

“In twenty years of practice, I have rarely heard allegations of such blatant discrimination,” Megan Goddard, Casias’ attorney, said in a statement to Atlanta News First. “My client was an integral, highly regarded member of the AT&T team for 16 years, but that changed drastically the day that she came to work in a dress and announced that she was transgender. Apparently, despite 16 years of stellar performance, AT&T considered her unworthy of performing substantive work once she transitioned.”

In a statement sent to Atlanta News First, AT&T said: “We do not discriminate, nor do we tolerate discrimination of any kind, including based on (an) individual’s gender, gender identity or sexual orientation.”