(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A transgender woman is suing a New York-based Hooters over alleged discrimination after the restaurant denied several job applications. The restaurant, however, has a different story.
Before transitioning, Brandy Livingston allegedly made sexually explicit comments to staff, including remarks about masturbation and marrying a worker.
Livingston’s pre-transitioning behavior prompted Hooters to ban Livingston from the restaurant—until they returned.
By the time of the gender transition, Brandy had applied for a job at Hooters three times.
During an interview with Hooters, Livingston told ABC10 to have asked whether the staff wanted to see past “experience or anything else.”
In response, the interviewer allegedly responded, “Oh, we don’t care about experience. We hire on the basis of personality. And there’s an image that needs to be met.”
The mistreatment alleged by Livingston did not stop there, as Hooters staffers refused to use preferred pronouns and questioned why the transgender woman was allowed to use the women’s restrooms.
“I overheard one of the servers after I left the restroom talking to one of the managers and said that, ‘Why are you allowing him in the women’s restroom?’ And the manager said, ‘Oh, I don’t like it any more than you do’,” Livingston recalled.
Despite claims of discrimination, Hooters asserted that Brandy was once threatened “to go to a gun range for practice for the next time you came to the restaurant.”
Livingston denied ever saying anything about that, claiming instead: “My mom would take me to the gun range and for clay pigeon shooting, trap.”
The transgender woman added, “I feel like one of the servers might have overheard what me and my dad were talking about and misunderstood what we were talking about.”
In response, Livingston filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights, which reported finding evidence of potential rights violations. A hearing is scheduled for a date that has yet to be announced.
