Rainbow Alliance files complaint against Pitt regarding transgender policy

Pitt’s Rainbow Alliance filed a complaint on Wednesday against the University regarding its… Pitt’s Rainbow Alliance filed a complaint on Wednesday against the University regarding its transgender policies.

The Pitt student group that promotes the interests of the LGBTQ community filed the complaint with the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, claiming that Pitt enacted “discriminatory practices relating to public accommodation” toward transgendered students. This marks the second complaint against Pitt this month regarding the University’s transgender policies.

Pitt announced the change in its unofficial policy regarding where transgender students are allowed to use gender identity-appropriate facilities in March 2012. Pitt’s previous policy stated that students were permitted to use the facilities that coordinated to the gender they associated themselves with. The new unwritten policy, which has been in effect for about two months, requires students to use gender-appropriate facilities that coordinate to the sex stated on their birth certificates.

President of Pitt’s Rainbow Alliance Tricia Dougherty said that the organization feels the new policy is “inviting harassment” and makes students feel uncomfortable in their daily routines. The organization felt that filing a complaint was the best way to deal with the new policy.

“People have to go about their daily lives wondering, ‘Am I going to get harassed?’” she said. “The worst part is taking students out of facilities they felt comfortable in.”

Dougherty said she hopes Pitt will revise its current policy to let transgender students feel “safe and included.”

Robert Hill, Pitt’s vice chancellor of public affairs, declined to comment on behalf of the University about the litigation, but said in an email that Pitt’s policy “is not to discriminate based on gender identity and expression.”

Dougherty’s complaint said Pitt has not provided a legitimate explanation for requiring students to provide documentation before being allowed to use “gender identity-appropriate restrooms or other facilities.”

Seamus Johnston, 22, a former Pitt student and transgender male from Cambria County, filed the first complaint to the city’s Commission on Human Relations against the University on April 17.

Johnston said that the nature of his complaints filed with the county, city and state against Pitt is “strictly within the scope of their discriminatory policies,” adding that the complaints are unrelated to the FBI’s investigation of his possible involvement in the recent string of bomb threats on Pitt’s campus.

His complaint said he “lives in accordance with his intrinsic male sex and has medically, legally and socially transitioned to male.” Both his passport and driver’s license designate his sex as male.

“[University of Pittsburgh – Johnstown] denied Mr. Johnston access to the men’s locker room because of his sex, perceived sex, stereotypes about sex, and because he had changed his sex,” the complaint said.

Johnston, who was expelled from Pitt in January for refusing to stop using the men’s locker room, received a notice from the Commission on Human Relations, dated April 20, that said Pitt wishes to respond to the complaint. It did not specify what the response would be or when it would come. Johnston anticipates that Pitt will argue the new transgender policy is non-discriminatory.

Charles Morrison, director of the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, said the University has 30 days to issue a response. After that, the person who issued the complaint has a month to rebut Pitt’s response. Neither the complaint nor the response will be released by the commission, because they are considered confidential.

Morrison said if “the matter cannot be resolved by virtue of some sort of settlement, the commission will go to a public hearing.”