Philadelphia City Hall in Downtown Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA – A transgender woman who served as Philadelphia’s executive director of LGBTQ+ Affairs is suing the City over her firing, claiming it was retaliation for raising concerns of harassment and discrimination against transgender and binary employees.
Celena Morrison’s Oct. 22 federal lawsuit overlaps with another filed in July, in which a DEI officer complained she was accused of betraying Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration by not building a case to fire Morrison.
Morrison began serving in her post in March 2020 but says things changed when Parker took office four years later. Her complaints about treatment of transgender and non-binary employees were rejected, she says, by supervisors who told her they were “not doing that they/them thing.”
Her commitment to the LGBTQ+ community was viewed as a hindrance, Morrison claims in her lawsuit.
“Ms. Morrison’s own gender identity soon became a direct target,” she adds. “In late March 2024, while Ms. Morrison was preparing for a Transgender Day of Visibility event, she overheard a member of the Mayor’s security personnel disclose her transgender status to another City employee without her consent.”
She also complains of sexual advances by another employee and questions Parker’s Executive Order No. 13-24, which reduced the authority of Morrison’s office. In late 2024, Brandee Anderson, the DEI employee who sued Philadelphia, informed Morrison that she was viewed as a “rogue” employee.
A hostile work environment led to Morrison cutting interactions short and hiding in a restroom to avoid a man who confronted her outside her office. She says the city never investigated the person, whom Morrison never named for fear of retaliation, over the sexual advances.
She was fired on Nov. 21, 2024, “without providing any explanation or reason for the decision,” the lawsuit says. Her termination letter said her actions were not “indicative of the leadership and conduct desired for this role.”
The suit makes claims for sex discrimination, retaliation, violation of civil rights, violation of the Equal Protection Clause and aiding and abetting. Morrison is represented by Zainab Shields of Mincey Fitzpatrick Ross.
