Dani Davis told a superior at Walmart that a man screamed anti-trans epithets while she was alone in the bathroom. Walmart fired her after she reported what happened.

Summary

Walmart fired Dani Davis, a 6’4" cisgender woman, after a man who mistook her for transgender verbally threatened her in a women’s restroom at a Florida store.

Davis, visibly shaken, reported the March 14 incident to her immediate supervisor but was fired for not informing salaried management, allegedly creating a “security risk.”

Davis called the firing discriminatory. After viral backlash, Walmart offered to reinstate her with back pay.

Davis, a longtime employee, is uncertain about returning, citing fears of a hostile work environment.

        • octopus_ink@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          If it were easy we wouldn’t need lawyers.

          Edit: Yeah, no one would believe this caused emotional distress. /s

          Around 8 p.m. on March 14, she wrote that she was alone in a stall in the women’s restroom when she heard a man yelling.

          “The voice was much louder than simply someone yelling in from the door. This man was fully IN the restroom, yelling something about” transgender women, Davis wrote.

          Davis said the man yelled he was going to “beat" them and was going to “protect his wife/girlfriend from them” while his wife or girlfriend was pleading with him to stop and leave before he got into trouble.

          Davis wrote she was scared and froze, not knowing if the man was going to physically attack her.

          “I was the only one in there so it seemed pretty clear that he saw me enter the restroom and he assumed that I am trans because of my height,” Davis recalled. “It was terrifying and I wish no one else ever had an experience like that.”

          The man eventually left, and Davis was able to leave the restroom and return to her workstation.

          “My immediate supervisor came by and noticed that I was visibly shaken and emotional. After taking a few moments to calm myself down, I told her what had happened. I didn’t go home since it wasn’t long until my shift was done (10 p.m.),” Davis wrote. “Less than a week later, I was fired.”

          The reason given for her termination was that she did not report the incident to a salaried management employee and, therefore, created a security risk.

          “I took it to mean that I was the security risk because someone had mistaken me for trans,” Davis told the Washington Post.

          Davis said she was devastated. Because of the anti-LGBTQ+ climate in Florida, she had been planning on leaving the state. But now, she doesn’t know after losing the job.

          She appealed the termination through Walmart’s internal review process but was denied. She filed for unemployment insurance but also took her story to Facebook, where it soon went viral.