On a routine basis, Jennifer Johnston’s boss at Whole Foods Market in Boulder would ask her whether she thought a certain person in the store was gay.

Her boss had concluded that Johnston, a graphic artist married to a woman, would obviously know who was gay because Johnston could use her “gaydar,” according to a federal employment discrimination lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Denver.

Johnston claims that type of exchange was just a small taste of the discriminatory harassment she endured, often daily, at Whole Foods’ flagship location at 2905 Pearl St. The “hostile and abusive” work environment ultimately led to Johnston’s “constructive” resignation, the lawsuit says.

Johnston seeks damages in excess of $75,000 for emotional distress including mental anguish, according to the lawsuit filed by Denver attorneys Claire Munger and Shelby Woods. She is seeking back and future pay and punitive damages.

The suit names Whole Foods Market Rocky Mountain/Southwest, a Texas limited partnership, as a defendant. Whole Foods operates natural and organic foods grocery stores across Colorado and the country.

A phone message left with the regional media office for Whole Foods was not immediately returned, but a person who answered the phone at the flagship store said two of the employees named in the lawsuit no longer work at that location. That person declined to comment further and referred all questions to the regional media office.

Johnston transferred from a Whole Foods store in Pennsylvania to the Boulder location on Dec. 5, 2014, and worked there until July 22, 2015, the lawsuit says.

Much of the abuse, which began in February of 2015, came directly from her supervisor, Tawny Duckworth, she claims in the lawsuit.

On “team member appreciation week,” Duckworth alternately dressed on successive days like her three subordinates on the marketing team. When she mimicked Johnston’s dress she wore “clothes aimed at negative lesbian stereotypes and biases — a sweatshirt, baggy jeans, old tennis shoes and a backward hat. This is not how plaintiff dressed,” the lawsuit says.

Duckworth then asked Johnston and her co-workers whether she looked gay enough, but using a derogatory term and said she was dressed like Johnston. She asked Johnston questions based on “butch” lesbian stereotypes, such as whether she plucked her eyebrows or ever washed her hair, the lawsuit says.

Duckworth would ask Johnston intrusive personal questions like whether she and her partner had “hotel sex” on vacation like heterosexual people. Duckworth routinely asked Johnston whether she thought certain people were gay, and explaining, “Well, you are gay/ Can’t you point out who else is gay?”

Johnston didn’t find the comments amusing and asked Duckworth repeatedly to stop targeting her gender and sexual orientation.

On July 2, 2015, Johnston registered discrimination complaints with the store’s general manager, Omar Ruiz, the lawsuit says. He apologized and offered to let her work a different shift to avoid contact with Duckworth, the lawsuit says. He said he would do a two-week investigation, it says.

After he spoke with Angie Nordstrum, the co-worker “stormed over to plaintiff’s work station and yelled at plaintiff that she hated her and that plaintiff was the most disgusting person she had ever known.” Thereafter, Nordstrum refused to speak with Johnston even when she asked questions about work projects, the lawsuit says. Johnston told Ruiz about the treatment.

On July 16, 2015, Ruiz called Johnston into his office to tell her the results of his two-week investigation. Ruiz told Johnston that she was going to be written up and issued a formal warning for allegedly playing music that sometimes used inappropriate language. He also reneged on his offer to change her schedule, the lawsuit says.

Ruiz made no mention of any action he would take to address the harassment, the lawsuit says.

Johnston denies that she ever played an inappropriate music video at work. That charge was made by Duckworth and Nordstrum but never corroborated. During the interview, Johnston had never been told she couldn’t play music at work or what type she could play, the lawsuit says. She had never been disciplined before she made her harassment complaint, it says.

Ruiz gave Johnston a written warning, skipping a step in the company’s four-step disciplinary procedures, the lawsuit says. The report called Johnston’s claim of being ignored by a co-worker was “another attempt to be manipulative and deceiving.”

Because of the retaliation and Ruiz’s refusal to give her another work schedule as he promised, Johnston resigned the following day, the lawsuit says.

“Said resignation constituted an involuntary termination,” the lawsuit says.

Johnston later learned that Ruiz had disciplined Duckworth after she admitted making discriminatory remarks, the lawsuit says.

She also learned that she had been accused of playing the music video “Turn Down for What,” by hip-hop artists DJ Snake and Lil Jon. The lawsuit says she played the song but not the video and that the song does not contain “any inappropriate language.”