Thomas Demartini, the San Francisco DMV worker who wasn’t happy about having to process a trans woman’s gender change on her driver’s license, has resigned. Amber Yust (pictured) claimed Demartini, who’s been on paid leave since October when his bosses verified Yust’s claims, didn’t seem to have any problem with her at the DMV office, but followed up her visit by pulling her contact info and mailing a letter to her home … something about being “an abomination that leads to hell.” Yust, 23, appears to be still moving forward with her privacy violation suit against the state. And let’s say hello to some punitive damages: Demartini was already cited, and forced into sensitivity training last year, after refusing to work with a trans customer.
jacknasty
that is a terrible thing to have happened, but I don’t like when people whom are victims like that go and file a lawsuit against the state. There are tens of thousands of state employees who have access to people’s addresses and phone numbers, I don’t think it is fair to try and win taxpayer money in a lawsuit because of the actions of one individual, who is being punished. But since the state has money (theoretically it is California after all)and the individual doesn’t she sues the employer for the actions of one employee. Ridiculous.
McMike
@jacknasty: WTF are you talking about??? The state knew this guy was a problem and allowed him to continue working and knew damn well another problem could arise. The state is fully at fault for allowing THEIR employee to continue working with the public knowing full well what this man was capable of.
jacknasty
@McMike: how would they have known? it didn’t say anything about any prior incidents
j
@jacknasty: Yes it did? Did you read the article? This man had already refused to serve a trans customer. In Britain, that would be enough to get a person fired.
This woman has every right to be compensated for having threatening material sent to her home address by someone who abused their position to get it there. The state doesn’t own us, we own it! And if any of its employees (who are in our employ) abuse their position, not once, but twice then of course they should accept responsibility for not dealing with the issue more thoroughly the first time.
If this was a man who sent neo nazi material to a black womans house and refused to serve black people before, would we still be saying the state wasn’t at fault for not spotting the red light?
Mac McNeill
Personally I’m getting a little fed up with the “religious right” using their job to push their religion on to people. This is not the only case that someone used their job for something like this. There has been cases of Pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for the day after pill based on religious beliefs.
If you want to push your church and not do the job you’re hired to do then go to work for your church.
I do hope the DMV puts a “no rehire” on this person. And maybe the public will get lucky and no one will hire him. It’s tough in this economy to be without a job, but this jackass did it to himself.
Jeffree
The only place Demartini will probably be able to get a job is at his church. He also reportedly passed on her info to that church so they could contact Ms. Yust.
The sad thing is that his co-religionists probably admire him for his actions.
kyals84
@jacknasty: How about you consider what happened before complaining about her filing a lawsuit.
When she initially filed a complaint the DMV response was sorry it happened, we’ll use this incident to learn how to improve things for the future. That was their ENTIRE response. Now that shes doing the lawsuit, the guy who did it is finally no longer working there. Good.
I’m glad he’s not in that job now.
Diane
@Mac McNeill: There’s a bit of a difference. If a pharmacist refuses to fill your prescription, you can go to another one on the next block. If the DMV refuses to work with you, you can’t exactly go to Nevada.
And yes, I know – old story. I just stumbled across it.