The Right Person for the Job

After months of psychotherapy, Schroer decided to proceed with the full course of medical treatment for people with gender identity disorder, a medical condition in which a person's gender identity conflicts with anatomical sex at birth.

Schroer began a job search that led last fall to the Library of Congress, which had an opening for a terrorism research analyst. Schroer said officials were thrilled when an applicant offered an operational background, rather than merely an academic one.

Interviewing as David, Schroer beat out 18 contenders and got all the way to discussions of salary and start date. Then Schroer asked the future supervisor out for lunch.

The supervisor, Schroer said, talked about the office and introduced David Schroer as the new researcher. At lunch, Schroer told her that the person coming to work would be Diane.

Schroer tried to make the supervisor more comfortable, explaining the surgeries and showing her pictures of Diane in a dress. "No one wants to go through life being the punch line of a joke. I'm not going to do this if I'm going to look like a truck driver in a dress. I wanted her to see I looked good, professional," Schroer said.

But the next day, Schroer said, the supervisor called and withdrew the offer.

"I felt cheated and kind of hurt, honestly," said Schroer, who called the ACLU the next day.

The supervisor did not return a message left on her home phone, asking for her side of the story.

"When you get called into Panama on the 19th of December, a week before Christmas, after a midnight phone call, and you do this kind of stuff as part of your job for years and years, and suddenlyyou're told that now you're not good enough to work for the government, that's not right," Schroer said.

Schroer's résumé describes David's role in creating and commanding a classified, 120-person organization that tracked terrorist groups around the world, often reporting directly to Vice President Cheney. Even so, Schroer as Diane is struggling to find a full-time job.

Given the chance to file the suit as an anonymous "Jane Doe," Schroer chose to file it as Diane Schroer, "to avoid hiding."