A homeless U.S, military veteran living at the Villages at Cabrillo has filed a legal complaint against an Orange County swim school claiming gender identity discrimination and wrongful termination, saying she can’t find another job.

Juliet Owen said she never experienced discrimination as a transgender person until she moved to Southern California.

“I never had any discrimination problems like this when I lived in Virginia,” Owen said.

Owen, 41, relocated from Virginia Beach, Virginia, after she was hired as a swim instructor in May for the Anaheim location of the Australian Swim Schools, an Orange County based swimming school with students ranging in age from three months to adults.

Once she arrived in Orange County, Owen told her boss she is transgender and was laid off by the school about a month later, she said. The school told her not enough students had signed up for summer water safety lessons, but when Owen returned to the facility about two weeks later to visit a friend, she noticed three new employees were hired to teach swimming lessons, Owen said.

The Australian Swim School, which has 30 days from when it received the complaint to reply to the allegations, has yet to respond.

“The Australian Swim School denies any wrongdoing and believes the facts of the case will bear that out,” attorney Jonathan Judge said in a brief telephone interview this week. “We will comply with all state and federal laws and provide and appropriate workplace for all employees and protect the interests of the students who train at the Australian Swim School.”

Gender identity discrimination complaint

Owen filed the complaint, a precursor to a lawsuit, in Orange County Superior Court on Oct. 1.

“I’m a human being. To treat me like this is not right. You can’t treat people like this,” Owen said. “Just because I’m different from you doesn’t mean I can’t do my job.”

Owen served in the U.S. Marine Corp from 1993 to 1994 and worked on aviation electronics while stationed in Memphis. She was honorably discharged after being diagnosed with chondromalacia, or “runner’s knee,” degeneration of cartilage in the knee, which causes intense pain.

California is one of 19 states plus Washington D.C. that protect transgender people in the workplace and prohibit firing someone based on gender identity, according to the Transgender Law Center.

An estimated one in four transgender people have lost a job due to bias, and more than three-quarters have experienced some form of workplace discrimination, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

“Transgender people have not made the same strides to equality as other members of the LGBT community,” said Owen’s attorney, Richard Jorgensen. “If there is any sense of justice, you should not be fired under the law for being transgender.”

Contact Phillip Zonkel at 562-714-2098.