ST. LOUIS — A transgender woman says the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs discriminated against her during her employment.
Kristeva Wolves, a United States Navy Veteran, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs and Secretary Denis McDonough alleging her supervisors at the Gene Taylor Outpatient Clinic in Springfield mistreated her based on her gender identity, according to a complaint filed Feb. 27 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
Wolves worked as an Environmental Service Technician in the EMS department and in 2020, she stopped using her pre-transition name. However, in January 2023, her supervisors began referring to her by her pre-transition name.
This was witnessed by others at the facility, according to the suit.
"This is a very unique case for me because in this case, Kristeva made a complaint about discrimination and there was an actual investigation that was conducted by an internal investigative committee to determine the veracity of my client's claims," Wolves' attorney, Jacob Eddy, said in an interview with The St. Louis Record. "They interviewed all these witnesses and through the pendency of that process, they actually came out with a findings of fact conclusion of law. It's more or less just a memo that says, 'Hey, here's the evidence that we found and here's our conclusion based on that evidence.' And what that investigative committee came up with is that discrimination did occur."
Eddy said the investigation laid out findings of discrimination and retaliation, but the VA didn't do anything about it.
"The issue that comes into play is that even though there was discrimination and, in our opinion, retaliation, they didn't really give it much credence and they didn't really care," Eddy said. "When we got involved with the VA directly and when the VA comes back and they have the evidence that the discrimination occurred, they didn't want to give it much credit and they didn't want to take the emotional damages that Kristeva has suffered seriously."
Eddy said since they already had findings that discrimination had occurred, he stressed that to the VA, but, the VA didn't take the findings of that determination seriously.
Wolves claims when she returned from sick leave on Jan. 15, 2023, one of the supervisors, known as S2, allegedly demanded she obtain a doctor's note with her pre-transition name, threatening to deny her sick leave otherwise.
On Jan.17, 2023, S2 sent an email to the EMS department discussing transgender terminology, singling out Wolves as "one transgender employee," potentially subjecting her to ridicule. Wolves filed a formal complaint with the EEO on Feb. 10, 2023, citing gender discrimination.
The EEO investigation found that S2 explicitly directed employees to refer to Wolves by her pre-transition name, even sending emails instructing this to several EMS department employees, according to the suit.
The Office of Resolution Management, Diversity and Inclusion determined that discrimination had occurred, as evidenced in the Final Agency's Decision.
Wolves claims that the defendants took adverse employment actions against her due to her gender, causing emotional distress, loss of sleep, pain and suffering and other damages.
She claims the defendants intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon her, causing severe emotional and medical issues and retaliated against her even further when she filed the discrimination complaint.
Wolves claims the work environment in which she was working was hostile and permeated with discriminatory behavior, which affected her emotionally and physically.
Wolves is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. She is represented by C. Bradley Tuck and Jacob G. Eddy of Evans & Dixon in Springfield.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri case number: 6:24-cv-03058