Jocelyn Boden, 47, managed a Bath & Body Works store in West Valley City, Utah for 3½ years.
In March, she hired a transgender man as a retail associate and, during their first shift together, Boden said she twice referred to the employee as “she” in keeping with her faith as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches that gender is an immutable characteristic of a person’s “eternal identity.”
After two associates corrected her, Boden informed her manager she would use the employee’s chosen name but would not “degrade my religious and moral beliefs by lying and calling this biological girl a he,” she told USA TODAY.
Boden was fired. Her termination notice cited "unwanted conduct directed at an individual based on their sex, which includes sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or transgender status." She says her termination was religious discrimination.
Boden is at the forefront of a growing conflict between religious freedoms and transgender and nonbinary rights in the workplace.
