I Got Fired for Putting my Pronouns in my Email Signature (Part 1)
By: Julie Locker
Tags: Independent Contractor, Discrimination, Pronouns, Tutoring Business, Transgender Rights

I Got Fired for Putting my Pronouns in my Email Signature (Part 1) Julie Locker Jun 19·5 min read

This is part one of a two-part series. Part two can be found here.

The first time I walked into TorchPrep’s Newport, Kentucky office, I suddenly found myself surrounded by five six-foot-tall White men. “One of these things is not like the others,” I thought to myself. Apparently, my application to become an ACT Trainer with them had preceded me — five pairs of (mostly) blue eyes peered down at me, mostly through hipster glasses, as they grinned, excited at the prospect of me joining their team. They were extremely friendly, but it was the first time in years that I was the only woman and the only person of color in a room. “You need me, White Man Company” I thought to myself. “Either that, or you’ll eat me alive.”

This hypothesis was tested early, when, less than a week after starting, I encountered a sexist remark objectifying high school girls in a training video. I reported it to my supervisor, Andrew Erickson, who took the video down in outrage, having been unaware that it was there. “Okay, they’re White men, but they’re woke White men,” I thought to myself, my comfort level instantly rising. From that moment, I trusted TorchPrep.

Which is why, over a year later, when a parent emailed me to ask if TorchPrep had made me put my pronouns in my email signature or if it was a personal choice, I bcc’d Erickson on my response, fully expecting him to back me up. He responded with an extremely long email about how he’s an ally to trans folks — he donates to the Okra Project and his brother’s best friend is trans, so he knows personally how hard it is — but it is TorchPrep’s policy not to allow us to customize our signatures beyond “First Name Last Name / Title / Legal Stuff about the ACT,” so I needed to remove my pronouns. I responded, “I’m not sure I understand. If TorchPrep’s motto is ‘heart first, head second’” (which it is) “and we pride ourselves on building relationships with students, why would TorchPrep stop me from taking an unobtrusive step towards letting trans students know that I respect them?” Erickson responded by setting up a phone call between the two of us and the CEO, Rhett Barbour.

This phone call was 40 minutes long. Barbour explained that he believes TorchPrep should be neutral, avoiding alignment with “movements” (the example he used was Black Lives Matter) or anything that could be perceived as controversial, and that he wants to avoid preaching dogma to clients. He also said that he does not see digital communication as the way for TorchPrep to live out their love for their students. I explained to him that in issues of anti-discrimination against marginalized people, there is no neutrality. Marginalized people risk too much to give the privileged the benefit of the doubt; therefore, any signal of support TorchPrep can send helps build positive relationships. For this reason, digital communication cannot exist in a separate realm from all other communication. I also explained that my expression of my personal gender identity preaches nothing. This phone call went well and ended with Barbour telling me that he would continue to think about it, but that I could keep the pronouns in my signature for the time being.

A couple weeks later, Erickson set up another phone call between the three of us, during which Barbour informed me that he had conducted a similarly in-depth phone call with the parent who had complained, and that it had confirmed for him that pronouns “have abrasion to another population.” In response, I informed them that I would not comply with the policy. I was told that I would not receive further work from them unless and until either my policies changed or theirs did.

At the encouragement of the Fairness Campaign, an LGBTQ Advocacy group in Kentucky, I filed a complaint of discrimination against them with the City of Newport. I discovered after filing the complaint that my identity mattered — apparently, a complaint of discrimination is valid only if a person with a protected identity has experienced discrimination. As a cis woman ally, I could not claim that TorchPrep had personally discriminated against me, and it was not enough for me to demonstrate that their policy is discriminatory. On top of that, I learned that city and federal law only apply to companies with 15 or more employees — TorchPrep had a maximum of 8 in the time I worked for them — and that it only covers employees, not independent contractors like myself. However, I also discovered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s checklist of what constitutes an employee-employer relationship and confirmed something that I had long suspected: that TorchPrep had been misclassifying me and all of their other Trainers as independent contractors. This meant that TorchPrep had more than 15 people with whom they had an employee-employer relationship, meaning that the law would apply to them.

In my argument to Newport’s Enforcement Officer, I walked through the EEOC checklist, proving that I had been misclassified, and then argued that TorchPrep’s email signature policy was not uniform and neutral, but discretionary and discriminatory because Barbour allowed me to keep my pronouns until he decided that they “had abrasion.” I had been told this would be an uphill battle, but the response I received from the Enforcement Officer shocked me:

“While Locker may be correct that TorchPrep miscategorizes the status of their independent contractors, the license inspector stated that the City has never undertaken investigations as to whether or not a contractor is indeed an employee, even though the City would be due additional taxes if a miscategorization were to be found. As it has never been the practice of the City to attempt to challenge the categorization of a worker, the City declines to do so now…. The City has no choice but to dismiss this matter and is unable to rule on the merits of the complaint.”

This, to me, has been the hallmark of this battle. Every person I have talked to every step of the way — the Fairness Campaign, lawyers, the EEOC — has essentially said, “What TorchPrep is doing is wrong, but the system doesn’t provide a framework for challenging that, so we just won’t.” It is wrong to discriminate against independent contractors, yet it is legal. It is wrong for small businesses to discriminate, yet it is legal. It is wrong for TorchPrep to be able to place limits on when and how people express their gender identity, yet it is legal. It is wrong that trans and nonbinary folks bear the onus of fighting these fights, yet there is no legal framework for allies who see this to stop it from happening — instead, we must wait for someone to be harmed before action can be taken. Our laws need to protect more of our citizens, but until they do, I urge TorchPrep and all other companies to stand on the sides of their employees and students against the prejudiced public. Otherwise, they may find themselves on the wrong side of history.