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Transgender podiatrist settles complaint
Workplace agrees to educate staff on gender and sexual orientation issues
Published Thursday, 08-Apr-2004 in issue 850
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) – A transgender podiatrist who alleged that she was forced from a top position at St. Luke’s Hospital in Allentown has settled her gender discrimination complaint against the hospital.
Gwen Greenberg, who was director of the podiatric surgical residency program at St. Luke’s Hospital-Allentown for 13 years, filed a complaint in November with the Allentown Human Relations Commission and another in December with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.
As part of the settlement terms, St. Luke’s agreed to add “gender identity and expression” to the categories of people protected by its patient bill of rights, and to offer education to hospital staff on gender identity and sexual orientation issues.
Other details, including whether Greenberg would be reinstated or receive back pay, were not released in the joint statement released by her lawyer and the hospital.
“All outstanding matters between Dr. Greenberg and St. Luke’s have been privately and amicably resolved at the satisfaction of both parties,” the statement said.
Greenberg, formerly known as Gary Greenberg, received counseling and hormone treatments before changing her name and persona to that of a female four months before she filed the complaint. She said she had long suffered from dysphoria, a condition characterized by intense feelings of being the wrong gender.
Reached at her Salisbury Township podiatry office, Greenberg referred all questions to her attorney Cynthia Schneider.
“I am bound not to make any further statements,” said Schneider, legal director for the Center for Lesbian & Gay Civil Rights in Philadelphia.
St. Luke’s spokeswoman Susan Schantz declined to comment beyond the joint statement. State and local human relations commission officials said that they had not been informed that a settlement was reached.
In her complaint, Greenberg said she continued working at the hospital but her contract as program director was terminated in May, two weeks after she informed administrators that on July 1 she would start talking, dressing and living as a woman.
When the complaint was filed, Greenberg said she did it to stand up for her civil rights and those of others.
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