A judge tossed out B. Scott’s discrimination lawsuit against BET this week. According to the ruling, the network had the 1st Amendment right to force the transgender host to wear mean’s clothing.
As we reported earlier, the celebrity blogger filed the suit after the BET Awards last year. He claimed the channel humiliated him on the red carpet by forcing him to change from women’s clothes into men’s clothes, and then pulling him off the show entirely.
The judge ruled that BET can run their production the way they like and dismissed the case all together.
Scott said he has plans to appeal the decision. He told TMZ, “It disheartens me that the message sent today wasn’t a message of acceptance, but rather it’s acceptable to discriminate against transgender individuals on the basis of their gender identity and expression.”
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Read his side of the story in an open letter he penned back in July.
I met with a producer of the show the night before and showed her the ensemble. She said it was acceptable and requested I send over a picture so that she could forward it to whomever she needed to. The picture of the complete outfit was sent over and everything was fine. At all points during this process, everything I was going to wear or considering wearing was both discussed and approved. According to BET, everything had to be approved because I was hosting sponsored segments and the sponsors needed to be comfortable.
The morning of the show I arrived on set at 10am for rehearsals. During rehearsals I sent the new outfit over to wardrobe to be steamed. Everybody involved in the process knew what I was wearing and began preparing the pieces accordingly.
…After rushing to make it to the red carpet in time, I was escorted by several members of production down to the stage. Everybody I spoke with commented on how fabulous I looked. There was never any indication that there was an issue. There was no pushback. I was simply there to do my job.
After interviewing AJ Calloway for my first segment I was literally yanked backstage and told that my look from head to toe “wasn’t acceptable.”
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B. Scott Loses His Discrimination Suit Against BET was originally published on hellobeautiful.com