Trans Man Sues Giant, Says Store Tried to Force Him to Wear Bosomy Female Uniform

Sam Melrath at work | Melrath and his fiancee (photos courtesy Sam Melrath via Facebook)

Sam Melrath is a 22-year-old transgender man from Northeast Philadelphia, and he is suing the Giant Food Store on Huntingdon Pike in Huntingdon Valley, accusing the store of discriminating against him due to his gender identity.

Over the summer of 2011, just before his senior year at Abington High School, Melrath took a job at the supermarket as a bagger. He had come out as a trans man during 11th grade, and by the time he went to work at the Giant, he was dressing as a man and referring to himself as “Sam.”

According to the lawsuit, filed this week in Philadelphia’s federal court, store management began pressuring him to dress and act in a manner that would conform with his sex assigned at birth. Melrath says that he was pressured to change his name tag from “Sam” to his name given at birth, even though other employees were allowed to use abbreviated forms of their names on their name tags, including a female employee named “Samantha,” who had shortened her name to “Sam” on her tag.

After he cut his once-long hair short while employed at the store, Melrath says that a manager pulled him aside and allegedly told him that if he cut his hair any shorter “there would be consequences.” When he questioned the manager, asking if she was threatening him, Melrath says the manager responded that these were just “normal standards” and that this was “just the way we run our business.”

He says he was disciplined by a manager for talking about his ex-girlfriend with another employee and that he was written up by management and instructed to “act normal” while at Giant.

But the final straw came in November 2013. When he was hired at Giant, the store had a unisex uniform policy, requiring all employees to wear button-up collared shirts, regardless of gender, according to the suit. But in November 2013, Melrath says that his supervisor told him that the store had a new policy and that employees would be required to wear gender-specific uniforms. According to Melrath, male employees were to wear the same type of shirt as before, while female employees were expected to wear a low-cut t-shirt that showed off their cleavage.

Melrath protested the change, explaining that he would feel extremely uncomfortable wearing the outfit assigned to female employees. But the Giant supervisor wouldn’t relent, allegedly telling him that “you get what you get, and you will like it.” He asked to speak with another manager about the policy but was shut down, so he quit. And he says he called a lawyer within an hour of walking out the door.

The suit accuses Giant of two counts of sex discrimination and harassment and seeks unspecified damages. (A spokesperson for the Carlisle, Pennsylvania-based Giant was not immediately available to comment on the suit.)

“It was terrible,” Melrath says of his time at the grocery store. “I would go home every single day torn up about it. I wore a rainbow bracelet one time, and I was told that I couldn’t wear it. Any other bracelet, management had no problem with it. I tried to put up with it, figuring I was only there for a few hours a day.”

After leaving Giant, he didn’t find work right away. The bagging gig at Giant was his first job, and he says he was worried that every place would treat him the same way.

“But then I found two jobs that really support who I am,” he says, explaining that he works an overnight shift at Planet Fitness and at a local Spencer’s Gifts shop. “Spencer’s likes everybody.”

Melrath says that his schoolmates at Abington were very supportive when he came out and that his family has been as well. Recently, Melrath became engaged to a woman he met online two years ago. He says there’s no wedding date set just yet. “We’re trying to get our lives in check,” he explains. “So, three years from now. Maybe.”

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