EMPLOYMENT
Doctor Alleges Homophobia at a Brooklyn Hospital
Lawsuit claims workplace harassment, anti-LGBTQ language, and retaliation
BY MATT TRACY
A gay surgery resident at the Brooklyn
Hospital Center faced severe harassment
and anti-LGBTQ discrimination
from supervisors and colleagues
in 2017 and 2018, according to a Brooklyn Supreme
Court lawsuit he fi led in September of
2018.
The doctor who fi led the suit, Chad Jensen,
described a disturbing workplace culture rife
with homophobic comments, sexual harassment,
and retaliation at the downtown Brooklyn
teaching hospital at 121 DeKalb Avenue.
Jensen also said doctors would routinely make
homophobic remarks about patients.
In what appeared to be an early red fl ag,
Jensen stated in his lawsuit that a fellow doctor
advised him not to come out as gay to the
director of the hospital’s general surgery residency
program, Dr. Armand Asarian, because
that colleague was aware of homophobic comments
Asarian made about patients in the past. COURTESY OF CHAD JENSEN
Chad Jensen says he was the subject of anti-LGBTQ harassment and discrimination during his time working as a surgery resident at a
➤ BROOKLYN HOSPITAL CENTER, continued on p.9 hospital in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
COMMUNITY
LGBT Center in Court to Dismiss #WalkAway Suit
Hearing considers whether MAGA queers have grounds to sue over event cancellation
BY MATT TRACY
Manhattan Supreme
Court Justice Kathryn
Freed was intent
as she listened
to oral arguments on February 20
in a bizarre case in which LGBTQ
Trump supporters are suing the
LGBT Community Center and others
for discrimination, defamation,
and cyberbullying after an event
the MAGA crowd had scheduled
there was cancelled.
There are major questions about
the suit’s viability and the plaintiff’s
ability to prove any of their
allegations. In the latest hearing,
defendants — which include the
Center as well as activists Jason
Rosenberg and Gordon Beeferman
— put forth motions to dismiss the
case, which also names the Center’s
executive director, Glennda
Testone, and staffer Gabriel Farofaldane.
Brandon Straka, who in 2018
launched the #WalkAway movement
to try to convince folks to
ditch the Democratic Party in favor
of the Trumped GOP, rented
space at the Center for a town
hall event in March of last year,
where he planned to speak alongside
Blaire White, Mike Harlow,
and Rob Smith. After the plans
sparked controversy about some of
the would-be speakers’ well-documented
history of bigoted rhetoric,
the event was eventually scrapped
— and Straka was refunded the
$650 fee for the space.
White, who is transgender, once
made a white power sign and said
in a Facebook post, “if he ain’t
Aryan, we ain’t marryin,” while
Straka has tweeted that non-binary
and genderqueer identities are
“make-believe positions.” He further
dismissed non-binary people
in a separate tweet, saying, “I’m
pretty sure transgender people
will be the fi rst to say that there
are two genders.” Straka has also
shared photos of himself alongside
alt-right former Breitbart journalist
Milo Yiannopoulos, who was
seen on video singing at a Dallas
karaoke bar in 2016 while white
supremacists including Richard
Spencer stood nearby making Nazi
salutes, according to Buzzfeed.
Among the voices who were
critical of the planned meeting at
the Center were Rosenberg and
Beeferman. Rosenberg ripped the
Center about the issue in a tweet
on March 19 of last year when he
wrote, “Like are y’all that desperate
for money? This is incredibly
egregious that you’d host an event
where panelists have used queer
slurs and stood behind policies
that put the community at great
risk. Stand for something. SOMETHING.”
As Gay City News has reported,
the legal team backing Straka,
White, and Harlow (Smith is not
part of the suit) is pushing a rather
unusual narrative — that the
event’s cancellation amounts to
sexual orientation discrimination
because the plaintiffs’ expression
of their LGBT identity differs from
others’.
At the February 20 hearing, J.
Remy Green, a partner at Cohen
& Green who represents Rosenberg
and Beeferman, argued that
their clients were merely expressing
their opinion and they noted
that the plaintiffs are public fi gures
who have appeared on cable
➤ #WALKAWAY LAWSUIT, continued on p.9
February 27 - March 11, 2 8 020 | GayCityNews.com
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