Correia & Puth filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Agency on behalf of their client, a transgender Transportation Security Officer (“TSO”) at Dulles International Airport. The case, filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, challenges TSA’s discriminatory new policy that prohibits her and other transgender TSOs from performing key functions of their jobs and utilizing women’s restrooms, based solely on their gender identity.
The case has drawn widespread public attention, including from the Associated Press here:
Lawsuit challenges TSA’s ban on transgender officers conducting pat-downs.
The Trump Administration’s new policy at TSA was an outgrowth of the January 20, 2025 Executive Order 14168, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, formally announcing the Administration’s attack on transgender employees within the federal workforce. That Executive Order denies the very existence of transgender individuals and gender identities that differ from a person’s sex assigned at birth.
On February 7, 2025, TSA management informed Correia & Puth’s client that high-level TSA officials had issued a directive to “comply” with the Executive Order. TSA’s directive prohibits her and all other transgender Officers from conducting security pat-downs of airline passengers—a core job duty and responsibility for a Transportation Security Officer. The directive also prohibits her from using the women’s restroom on TSA property.
“Our country’s civil rights laws require that transgender employees are treated equally and with dignity in the workplace,” said Jonathan Puth, founding Partner at Correia & Puth, PLLC. “Now, more than ever, we must work to ensure that the rights guaranteed under our laws are respected and secured. For those who choose to dedicate their lives to public service, as our client has, they deserve respect and fair treatment from the government they serve every day.”
Correia & Puth attorneys Jonathan C. Puth and Kelsey Speyer filed the lawsuit with their co-counsel Carla Brown of Charlson Bredehoft Cohen Brown & Nadelhaft.
