Court Opinion

ID: 9495410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:02:14.427088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:36.309082
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge, with
whom TROTT and BERZON, Circuit Judges, join, concurring.
I concur in the result of Judge Fletcher’s opinion. I write separately to point out that in my view, this is a case of actionable gender stereotyping harassment.
More than a decade ago, the Supreme Court held that gender stereotyping is actionable under Title VII. See Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 250-51, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989). More recently, the Supreme Court held that “same-sex sexual harassment is actionable under Title VII.” Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 82, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998). And only last year, we held that same-sex gender stereotyping of the sort suffered by Rene — i.e., gender stereotyping of a male gay employee by his male coworkers — “constituted actionable harassment under ... Title VII.” Nichols v. Azteca Restaurant Enterprises, Inc., 256 F.3d 864, 874-75 (9th Cir.2001).
Rene testified in his deposition that his co-workers teased him about the way he walked and whistled at him “[l]ike a man does to a woman.” Rene also testified that his co-workers would “caress my butt, caress my shoulders” and blow kisses at him “the way ... a man would treat a woman,” hugged him from behind “like a man hugs a woman,” and would “touch my body like they would to a woman, touch my face.” Rene further testified that his co-workers called him “sweetheart” and “muñeca” (“doll”), “a word that Spanish men will say to Spanish women.” This conduct occurred “many times.” The repeated testimony that his co-workers treated Rene, in a variety of ways, “like a woman” constitutes ample evidence of gender stereotyping.1
The conduct suffered by Rene is indistinguishable from the conduct found actionable in Nichols. In that case,
*1069Male co-workers and a supervisor repeatedly referred to [the male gay plaintiff] in Spanish and English as “she” and “her.” Male eo-workers mocked [him] for walking and carrying his serving tray “like a woman,” and taunted him in Spanish and English as, among other things, a “faggot” and a “... female whore.”
256 F.3d at 870. We concluded in Nichols that “[the] rule that bars discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes” set in Price Waterhouse “squarely applies to preclude the harassment here.” Nichols, 256 F.3d at 874-75. More generally, we held that “this verbal abuse was closely related to gender,” “occurred because of sex,” and therefore “constituted actionable harassment under ... Title VII.” Id.
The similarities between Nichols and the present case are striking. In both cases, a male gay employee was “teased” or “mocked” by his male co-workers because he walked “like a woman.”2 And in
eotyping in the present case than only "one line in Rene's deposition of over one hundred pages.” Diss. at 1077 note 4. both cases, a male gay employee was referred to by his male-co-workers in female terms — “she,” “her,” and “female whore” in Nichols; “sweetheart” and “muñeca” (“doll”) in the present case — to “remind!] [him] that he did not conform to their gender-based stereotypes.” Nichols, 256 F.3d at 874. For the same reasons that we concluded in Nichols that “[the] rule that bars discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes” set in Price Water-house “squarely applie[d] to preclude the harassment” at issue there, Nichols, 256 F.3d at 874-75, I conclude that this rule also squarely applies to preclude the identical harassment at issue here.3 Accordingly, this is a case of actionable gender stereotyping harassment.

. Thus, contrary to a claim in the dissent, there is much more evidence of gender ster-

. It is not significant that, unlike the male employee in Nichols, Rene did not testify that his co-workers teased him for "walking ... 'like a woman,’ ” id. at 870, but only that his co-workers "teas[ed][him] about the way [he] walk[ed] and ... whistle[d] at [him] like a woman.” There would be no reason for Rene’s co-workers to whistle at Rene “like a woman,” unless they perceived him to be not enough like a man and too much like a woman. That is gender stereotyping, and that is what Rene meant when he said he was discriminated against because he was openly gay. Likewise, contrary to a claim in the dissent, it is not significant that Rene apparently perceived himself to be "masculine.” Diss. at 1077. At issue is not what Rene perceived himself to be, but rather what his co-workers perceived him to be, and how they acted upon that perception.

. It is also worth noting that the "butlers” that served the Grand Hotel’s guests on the 29th floor were, for whatever reason, all male, as the term "butler” connotes. All-male workplaces are common sites for the policing of gender norms and the harassment of men who transgress such norms. See, e.g., Margaret Stockdale, Michelle Visio, and Lee-na Batra, The Sexual Harassment of Men: Evidence for a Broader Theory of Harassment and Sex Discrimination, 5 Psychol. Pub. Pol’y & L. 630, 653-54 (1999) (stating that "Predominantly or exclusively male environments tend to be more sexualized and less professional than gender neutral environments,” and finding that data from a Department of Defense sexual harassment survey "support the trend that same-sex sexually harassed men worked in more male-dominated workplaces than did other men”); Vicki Schultz, Reconceptualizing Sexual Harassment, 107 Yale L.J. 1683, 1755 n. 387 (1998) ("[M]any male workers may view not only their jobs, but also the male-dominated composition and masculine identification of their work, as forms of property to which they are entitled.”); Oncale, 523 U.S. at 77, 118 S.Ct. 998 (oil rig crew in which harassed male plaintiff worked was all male).