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Davenport Files Sex Discrimination Lawsuit Against SVSU

BY AJ TRAGER

Char Davenport, left, board member for Transgender Michigan and well respected trans activist in the state, filed a federal lawsuit against SVSU for sex discrimination after losing a job because of her gender. She recently was highlighted in an Eclectablog.com series focusing on trans identities in the state. She has three children and two grandchildren. Photo by: Sam Jackson

Char Davenport, board member for Transgender Michigan and well respected trans activist in the state, filed a federal lawsuit against SVSU for sex discrimination after losing a job because of her gender. She recently was highlighted in an Eclectablog.com series focusing on trans identities in the state. She has three children and two grandchildren. Photo by: Sam Jackson

SAGINAW – "She said I was a liar and had been my entire life. That is hard. If I had to pick just one thing that really hurt…" Charin Davenport said trailing off. "That's how you feel about yourself because you feel like your whole life is a lie. Nobody wants to be trans."
By the time this conversation had happened, Charin Davenport, an adjunct English professor teaching at Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) and Delta College, had been dismissed from her job at SVSU as assistant to the Director of Academic Programs Support, Ann Coburn-Collins.
Davenport had been working for SVSU in multiple capacities since 2007. She started as an adjunct professor in the English department, then from August 2011 to July 2012 she worked additionally as the coordinator of academic tutoring services and became Coburn-Collins' assistant in July of 2012.
Before the 2013 fall semester began, Davenport attended a trans conference in Atlanta geared toward making campuses more open and affirming of trans students and faculty. She had gotten permission from Coburn-Collins and received funding for her trip south, which she had hoped would inform her academic work.
Davenport returned and spent the next semester teaching and working part time in an editorial capacity for Coburn-Collins. Shortly after the fall semester began, her scheduled hours were cut down to 10 a week.
In October 2013, Davenport decided it was time to introduce the world to her authentic self and began to retire the male identity that was assigned to her at birth. She scheduled an appointment with her supervisor, Coburn-Collins, to discuss changes moving forward and that's when things went south.
"I told her that my intention was to start hormones and that I would probably be teaching as Char in the winter or the following fall — no later than the following fall. And then she started crying. I thought she was really happy," Davenport explained.
After drying her tears, Coburn-Collins said that this was her own fault and that "she should've given me a full time job because I had too much time on my hands," Davenport told BTL.
Over the course of the next two months, Davenport's position was knocked down to five hours a week and then was eliminated in December. Upon inquiry, Coburn-Collins told Davenport that the decision was made by the provost and university officials who had gone through the budget and decided the position was unnecessary.
Davenport legally changed her name to Charin the following April. During this process, she stopped by the academic programs support office to see if her previous supervisor and work friend would be interested in catching up and repairing the bridge that was broken.
It was at that meeting that Coburn-Collins called her a liar and the two engaged in a heated discussion. According to Davenport, Coburn-Collins threw papers and other office supplies off her desk and then began pounding on the desk.
"I finally got the confidence and went to leave. She said, 'Hold it right there, Mr.' I froze and she said, 'Don't think that this is about your so called gender, this is about you being a liar.' And I couldn't speak and I walked out and I made a b-line to the secretary's desk," Davenport explained. "That's when I knew that the reason I lost my job was because in the eyes of my boss I was disgusting, despicable and a liar because I'm transgender."

Fighting Against Defeat, Davenport Files A Lawsuit

"I felt utterly defeated," she said.
Until that time, Davenport had never been fired from anything before. She had won awards for Teacher of the Year everywhere she had taught and was loved by her fellow faculty and her students. But she felt her life had been turned upside down.
Davenport went above and beyond to inform and educate the university chain of command regarding how changes in her appearance would affect the establishment. She met multiple times with the human resources department about her name change and her use of university locker rooms and bathrooms.
Shortly after the heated meeting with her former boss, Davenport was diagnosed with kidney cancer. She had to stop teaching to undergo treatments but said she could've continued working editorially for the academic programs support office and maintained some form of income to help cover medical costs and other financial responsibilities. However, due to her termination, those funds were not available.
"You reach a point in your life and you think I'm gonna do this thing and you can't. I just wanted to give up in all the ways that that means," Char told BTL. "I sat in my apartment all by myself thinking about cancer, always being broke, losing another job and never having self-actualization and congruency of everything… never knowing."
She and her former boss were close. Davenport would house-sit while Coburn-Collins was out of town and they would go out for drinks and socialize together after work with other university faculty. Coburn-Collins was the second person Davenport told about her plans of transitioning, thinking that Coburn-Collins would be supportive and happy for her and share in the joy.
On April 8, 2016, Jennifer Salvatore filed a lawsuit in federal court against SVSU on behalf of Davenport claiming that the university discriminated against Davenport due to her gender.
"Discrimination against people who don't conform to traditional gender stereotypes is a form of sex discrimination under the law," Salvatore said in a news release. "No human being should be vilified and denigrated the way Char was by her supervisor, let alone lose their job because of who they are. She is a wonderful person with a lot of courage to speak out about what happened to her."
The lawsuit claims that SVSU violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Davenport and her counsel are asking the court to reinstate her to her former position and is seeking financial damages from a jury.
"We support all our students, faculty and staff, including those who are members of the LGBT community," J.J. Boehm, SVSU spokesman, said. "We have a Pride Center on campus to serve those individuals and to contribute toward an inclusive campus environment. Since this is pending litigation, we can have no further comment at this time."
"I needed to do this for me, because you begin to believe the narrative about yourself. That you really are disgusting, and that you really are a liar, and you begin to beat yourself up. But, there's a whole world out there just waiting to beat me and every other Trans woman and trans man up, you know? We don't need to help it. There are people and institutions out there that will put up road blocks and knock us down, over and over, and I decided that I wasn't going to allow that. I'm 60-years-old. I'm good at what I do and I know exactly who I am. I guess, in a way, I'm glad that it was someone like me," Davenport said.
Davenport is a board member for Transgender Michigan and is a well respected trans activist in the state. She recently was highlighted in an Eclectablog.com series focusing on trans identities in the state. She has three children and two grandchildren.
Coburn-Collins was approached for comment; as of press time, BTL had not received a response.

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