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Nike employee who identifies as ‘transmasculine’ sues for $1.1 million for being ‘misgendered’ by coworkers

December 21, 2019 | | Print Article

Virulently far-left, anti-Trump author J.K. Rowling isn’t the only left-wing zealot getting a taste of her own “woke” medicine this week.

On Monday, a former Nike engineering contractor by the name of Jazz Lyles sued the ever-so-“woke” apparel retailer Nike for its very “unwoke” behavior.

Lyles’ beef? It just so happens that Lyles is a transgender something and prefers that the plural pronouns “they,” “them” and “their” to be used to identify him/her.

And well, the very “unwoke” employees at Nike’s headquarters in Oregon were allegedly unwilling to cater to Lyles’ bizarre demands.

“The lawsuit, filed this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleges Nike … exposed Lyles to gender identity-based discrimination and harassment and retaliation,” Willamette Week reported on Tuesday.

“Lyles identifies as transmasculine/nonbinary. That means Lyles was assigned the female gender at birth but identifies with masculinity and is a nonbinary person.”

Check out the full suit below:

Documents reviewed by Willamette Week reportedly show that before Lyles began working with Nike, she requested that others refer to her by her preferred pronouns.

“But from the beginning, Nike employees allegedly disregarded Lyles’ requests. … People on the technical teams on which Lyles worked — which included Nike employees and independent contractors but which reported to Nike managers — allegedly repeatedly used the wrong pronouns, which is known as ‘misgendering,'” the outlet noted.

And which some left-wingers believe ought to be a punishable crime.

When Lyles attempted to convey her frustration, one of her colleagues reportedly informed her that using fictional pronouns would violate certain religious beliefs.

Frustrated by her colleagues’ refusal to comply with her draconian, non-biologically accurate demands, Lyles eventually “took medical leave and worked primarily from home” before her contract reportedly ended sometime in the fall of 2018.

One year later, she’s now seeking $1.1 million in damages over her hurt feelings.

Ouch. Apparently, “woke capitalism” doesn’t pay …

“Nike had a pattern and practice of turning a blind eye to reported and known harassment, 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,” the suit reads.

Considering that it was Lyles who tried to force her demands on her colleagues, it’s unclear how she was ever bullied. If anything, it sounds as if she’d attempted to bully her colleagues.

“When someone refuses to acknowledge a person’s gender identity or insists on referring to them by a gender to which they do not identify (called misgendering), this causes real and significant harm,” the suit continues. “This is particularly true when a person is misgendered repeatedly on a daily basis.”

The kicker, though, is how Lyles uses Nike’s history of “woke” behavior — its embrace of disgraced former NFL star Colin Kaepernick, its disrespect of the Betsy Ross flag and its promotion of the transgender ideology — to take a shot at it.

“In efforts to maintain a positive brand image and reputation, Nike has stressed inclusivity with its ‘Be True’ campaign, emphasizing equality and diversity to the public, and utilizing transgender athletes as part of that campaign,” Lyles alleges in the lawsuit.

“However, behind closed doors, Nike’s culture is one of inequality and pervasive harassment for those who do not fit the gender stereotypes and mold of the dominant cisgender white male culture.”

The alleged bigots at “unwoke” Nike have disputed her allegations.

“Lyles was a mediocre [contractor] with a limited skill set,” Nike’s attorneys at Stoel Rives LLP reportedly said in a statement to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. “Lyles’ allegations are without merit.”

“Nike is committed to a culture of diversity, inclusion and respect where everyone can succeed and realize their full potential,” Nike spokesperson Greg Rossiter added in a separate statement.

It appears Nike is getting the same treatment as Rowling, who was effectively “canceled” by the far-left this week after she posted a tweet in support of an “unwoke” bigot who was fired from her job for basically stating the biological truth that men are men, women are women and biological “sex is real.”

Rowling was canceled despite being a highly “woke” left-winger who’s embraced every left-wing cause known to man, including of course anti-Trumpism and transgenderism. Yet the ones seeking to “cancel” her are the very ones with whom she’d tried to curry favor.

Likewise, while Nike hasn’t been “canceled,” per se, it’s now facing a $1.1 million lawsuit from a member of the very same radical community it’s tried so hard to appease.

One might say that perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned in all this? And that lesson, as hopefully already learned by Rowling and singer Taylor Swift, could maybe be that if you lie with liberal dogs, you’re bound to catch some “progressive” fleas.

And FYI, those fleas can sometimes be really, really, really expensive to treat!

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Vivek Saxena
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