Transgender Pair Files Bias Complaint

MASSACHUSETTS LAWYERS WEEKLY

 

News Briefs

 

Published: November 10, 2008 

 

Samantha J. Cornell, a transgender woman, and Andrea v. Boisseau, her spouse, recently filed a housing discrimination complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination after a rental agent informed them that an apartment they sought had been rented to a “straight, single male.”

 

Cornell was born as a male but identifies as a female.  She has been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, a diagnosis that applies to individuals who experience a significant disparity between their biological sex and their gender identity.  Boisseau was born with an intersex condition.

 

In April of this year, Cornell and Bousseau began searching for a new apartment after their landlord lost his building in a foreclosure.  They found an advertisement for an apartment in Oxford that they could afford and viewed the apartment with rental agent Marck Mercadante.  After Mercadante’s refusal to rent the apartment to them, Cornell and Boisseau struggled to find housing and were homeless for a period of time.

 

The complaint alleges that they were discriminated against on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, marital status and disability.  In addition to alleging discrimination by Mercadante, Cornell and Bousseau charged the owners of the property, Irene Daviau and Valerie Cepeda, with violating state and federal fair housing laws.

 

Cornell and Boisseau are represented by Jane L. Edmonstone of the Legal Assistance Corp. of Central Massachusetts.