Transgender Wants to Use Women’s Locker Room

Transgender fights Cleveland on locker room policy

Associated Press – July 27, 2008 8:45 PM ET

CLEVELAND (AP) – A transgender woman in Cleveland says she’s fighting the city over its insistence that she change clothes in the men’s locker room at a city-run pool.

Fifty-3-year-old Karen Deamons (DEE-muhns) identifies as a woman but has not had sex-change surgery. Some women who use the pool are uncomfortable with the idea of her changing in the women’s locker room.

Deamons says she filed a complaint with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission last month. She’s also asking the Ohio Legislature to pass a bill to prohibit cities from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi says the city hasn’t discriminated against Deamons and has tried to be accommodating.

Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com