Property managers retaliate as Black trans woman complains of discrimination, suit says
Shayla Anderson’s home at the Grand Fountain apartment complex in Richmond, Texas was a safe haven when she first moved in, she told Click2Houston.
But over the last two years, she and her family say they have been subject to escalating discrimination due to the color of their skin and her status as a transgender woman, according to a lawsuit they filed against the Sunridge Management Group and Grand Fountain apartments.
Anderson, a Black transgender woman, said it all started when she called the management office to make a noise complaint back in August 2020. She followed up with an email, but she says they never acknowledged her complaint. So she went in person to the management office.
There, she says she was directed to leave or they would call authorities to forcibly remove her. In the process, property manager Rosie Cazares intentionally misgendered her, she told Click2Houston.
“I went to her office, and she said ‘I’m not going to speak with you about this’,” Anderson told the outlet. “I’m not going to speak with you about this, sir.”
Anderson told the news station she has surgically transitioned, and she presents very feminine, so the insult came as a shock to her.
“Being a Black transgender woman, post-operative, it kind of took me back,” she told Click2Houston. “She took my womanhood and crushed it by calling me ‘sir’.”
She called the next day about noise and was told she could “get a move out form or pick one up,” the lawsuit says. This new noise complaint was not taken, according to the lawsuit.
Anderson resorted to filing a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the situation deteriorated, the lawsuit says.
The couple believes that because of their complaint, Cazares retaliated against them, the lawsuit says.
McClatchy News reached out to attorneys for Sunridge Management Group, Grand Fountain Apartment, and Anderson and her family, and did not receive a response.
The next week, Anderson’s family requested apartment repairs through the company’s online portal. Shortly after that, they were blocked from accessing the portal, and they never received the requested repairs, the lawsuit says.
About six months later, on March 8, 2021, Cazares knocked on their door just after 7 p.m. and told them she had a loud music complaint, the lawsuit says. The family says they weren’t playing any loud music, but they were then served a lease violation dated March 9, 2021, for a March 3, 2021 violation, the lawsuit says.
According to the lawsuit, Cazares told Anderson: “you weren’t being courteous when you were playing that ghetto music loud.”
Anderson and her family in their lawsuit accuses Cazares and the management company of engaging “in willfull, malicious, intentional, oppressive and despicable conduct,” and acting with disregard for their “civil rights, welfare, and safety.”
Before filing the lawsuit in August, Anderson filed a discrimination complaint with the Fair Housing Act. The agency has not yet rendered its final decision, but it did authorize the right to sue, according to the lawsuit.
Anderson told Click2Houston that a lot of people ask why they don’t leave the situation. “A lot of people say, ‘Well, why don’t you move? Why don’t you get out of there?’” Because then, I give them the power,” she said.
