“We are very proud to employ a large number of transgender individuals, whom, like all employees, are treated with dignity and respect.”
— Mary Ellen Keating, a spokesperson for Barnes & Noble when asked to comment on an ongoing discrimination lawsuit the company faces from a former transgender employee.
As reported by Fortune, Victoria Ramirez, who formerly worked at a Barnes & Noble in Orange County, Calif., was criticized in 2012 and 2013 by her manager for her appearance as she began painting her nails and growing out her hair. When Ramirez notified her manager that she was transitioning and wanted to present herself as a woman at work, the manager tried to discourage her, forbidding Ramirez from asking other employees to call her by her female name, from being able to use the women’s restroom, or wearing skirts or makeup.
Ramirez was later fired after calling in sick as a result of suffering from panic attacks caused by stress. Barnes & Noble is one of several companies facing lawsuits for allegedly discriminating against transgender people, following the federal government’s recent policies that treat transgender discrimination the same as sex-based discrimination.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and Potomac Law Group have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two students who say they were denied permission to form a Gay-Straight Alliance at King George Middle School in King George, Virginia.
According to the lawsuit, the lead plaintiff, a seventh-grade student identified by the initials Z.J.W., learned about GSA clubs while researching them at home.
With their parents' support, Z.J.W. contacted a teacher in August 2025, before the start of the school year, and asked her to sponsor a GSA at the middle school.
Point of Pride, a trans-led nonprofit that provides financial aid and direct health services to transgender youth and adults, has opened applications for its Thrive Fund, which helps trans people with expenses not covered by the organization's other programs.
Established in 2024, the Thrive Fund helps cover expenses beyond the nonprofit's existing services, which range from free chest binders and femme shapewear to financial assistance for transition-related surgery, hormone therapy, and electrolysis.
Thrive Fund grants can cover non-medical transition-related expenses, including legal fees for name and gender marker changes, fertility preservation, vocal therapy, and medical tattooing used to restore skin pigmentation or conceal scars from gender-affirming surgery. Applicants may request up to $2,500 at a time.
A transgender couple faces criminal charges after being beaten by a mob over their use of a women's restroom at Cypress Black Bayou Park in Benton, Louisiana.
Aurora Rush and Shae Sanders went to Cypress Black Bayou Park on May 31 for a lakeside cookout. Rush, a trans woman, used the women's restroom and returned to the lake without incident. Later, as the couple headed back to their car, Sanders, who is nonbinary and was assigned female at birth, stopped to use the same restroom, according to journalist S. Baum, reporting for Erin Reed's Erin in the Morning Substack.
As Rush waited outside, she says a man began harassing her. He followed her to her car, threatening to harm her if she entered the women's restroom, calling her slurs, and trying to provoke a fight. After leaving some belongings in the car, Rush returned to a pavilion outside the restroom to wait for Sanders.
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