Former Google employees file lawsuit claiming they were targeted for being gay, trans

Three former Google employees have filed lawsuits against the tech giant alleging they were unjustly fired and discriminated against for being gay or trans, Bloomberg reports.

Rebecca Rivers, Sophie Waldman and Paul Duke claim that after expressing concerns about a proposal to work with the Trump administration’s border security agencies, they were falsely accused of leaking information about the project to the media.

In the lawsuit, filed Monday in Santa Clara County, Calif., the former employees allege Google violated state discrimination law with their firings. Rivers, Waldman and Duke were among five employees who were let go over the border plan. Of those employees, three are trans and one is gay.

“Google’s conduct of targeting gay and trans employees for termination based upon their involvement in the above activities constitutes unlawful discrimination,” the suit reads, according to Bloomberg.

Google claimed the employees were terminated for violating company data security policies, which the accused deny.

The lawsuit comes after the National Labor Relations Board earlier this year accused Google of breaching federal labor law over the firings of Rivers, Waldman and Duke, among others. The trial for the complaint is currently ongoing, Bloomberg noted.