Steve Stanton is the City Manager of Largo. He plans to become Susan Stanton, and Largo just might fire him:
Three undecided Largo city commissioners could determine the fate of City Manager Steve Stanton tonight.
Last week, Stanton's announcement that he plans to have a sex-change operation roiled this city of 76,000, with its mobile home parks full of retirees and its feed store in the middle of downtown.
By Monday, Mayor Pat Gerard was the only member of the seven-member City Commission to say she still stands by Stanton, 48.
Three other commissioners say they intend to fire the 14-year city manager or are likely do so.
That leaves three commissioners — Gigi Arntzen, Gay Gentry and Rodney Woods — as the deciding votes. Largo's city charter requires a vote of five out of seven city commissioners to fire the city manager.
At a special meeting called to discuss Stanton, commissioners expect to face more than 500 people.
City Hall has received more than 250 e-mails about Stanton, more than 40 percent from people who identified themselves as Largo residents. Those e-mails called for his removal by a 7-to-1 ratio.
What the commissioners appear to plan would be illegal if being transgendered was protected under Civil Rights legislation, because it satisfies the economic definition of labor market discrimination. After all, nobody is arguing that Mr. Stanton wouldn't be able to do the same job equally well just because of sex change operation. The reason why so many want him out of the job has nothing to do with the concrete details of his job performance and everything to do with the frightened feelings about transgendered individuals.
Would the reaction be the same if a City Manager called Susan Stanton announced that she is going to become Steve Stanton? What do you think?
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The link from a commenter on Eschaton threads.