A transgender McDonald’s crew member experienced multiple cases of sexual harassment and discrimination on the job, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed against the restaurant owner and the parent company — including being barred by managers from using the women’s and men’s restrooms and relegated to a rear bathroom that was used as a storage closet.

La’Ray Reed worked at a McDonald’s in Redford, Michigan, for six months in 2015, during which time coworkers called her a "boy slash girl" and other sexualized insults, the lawsuit alleges. One also groped her, according to the suit. Reed reported the mistreatment to the franchise owner and was later fired, she alleges.

Activists with the Fight for $15 worker movement, which has run a multiyear campaign to pressure McDonald’s to improve pay and conditions at its restaurants, are supporting Reed's complaint. They say the suit, together with complaints filed by current and former employees around the country in recent months, demonstrate a "widespread pattern of sexual harassment, discrimination and abuse" against gay and transgender employees at the fast-food giant.

"The growing number of allegations suggests a failure by McDonald’s to enforce the zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment outlined in its Operations and Training and Policies for Franchisees manuals," Fight for $15 representatives wrote in an email to BuzzFeed News. Reed has participated in marches organized by the labor group, which is backed by the Service Employees International Union and which helped arrange her legal counsel, provided in part by the Detroit-based Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice.

McDonald's and the franchise owner did not respond to requests for comment. The fast-food corporation has long argued it is not legally responsible for pay and working conditions at its franchised locations — a claim the Fight for $15 activists have been contesting via multiple legal and regulatory appeals. McDonald's insists it does not control the day-to-day working conditions of the line cooks, cashiers, and drive-through workers who wear its uniform, and that only the franchise operator can be held liable for misconduct.

During the Obama presidency, the Department of Labor issued guidance that suggested companies like McDonald’s should be considered the joint employers of the workers in their franchised restaurants, in a move that was cheered by labor activists and denounced by industry groups. Last week, the Trump administration formally withdrew that guidance.

In the lawsuit, Reed alleges a coworker groped her genitals at the urging of a store manager who wanted to know whether she had a penis. “You can’t feel it from the front. You have to feel it from the back,” the manager allegedly said over the headset system used by all employees.



Another time, a manager allegedly told a crew member to follow Reed into the ladies’ room to see if she was standing up or sitting down to use the toilet. “I had never had a problem using the ladies room until this day,” Reed wrote in an email to BuzzFeed News. “When I came out the restroom, the manager told me I could no longer use either of the restrooms in the lobby.”

Instead, the manager allegedly had Reed go to the back of the store and clean the out-of-use bathroom, which was being used as a storage closet. That became Reed’s bathroom, she says, which she was also made responsible for cleaning.