A Christian employee at a spa operated by Hershey Entertainment and Resorts in Pennsylvania is alleging that she was suspended for declining to escort a transgender guest to the women’s locker room. 

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Jeriah Sellers, a current employee at Hershey’s MeltSpa in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who is a Christian, says she was denied a religious accommodation and suspended without pay after she told her bosses she was not comfortable taking a transgender individual into the women’s locker room. 

The lawsuit states that on May 28, Ms. Sellers’s supervisor asked if she knew about a guest who was scheduled for spa services that day. The supervisor told the plaintiff that the guest was a female-identifying transgender man and a “well-known political figure.”

“The supervisor asked Jeriah to escort the male guest to the Women’s Locker Room when the guest arrived,” the complaint says. “Plaintiff would then be expected to take the guest into the Women’s Locker Room and show the guest around, familiarizing the guest with all of the amenities, even if a female guest was using the space.”

Ms. Sellers lawyers write that she felt “uncomfortable with this directive because it violated her religious beliefs.” The lawsuit states that Ms. Sellers was “relieved” by her supervisor’s response to her concern. The filing notes that there were other concierges and the manager available to help the transgender customer.

During her next shift, Ms. Sellers met with the MeltSpa manager to discuss “the accommodation provided by her supervisor.” The lawsuit says that she “wanted to be as deferential as possible to the supervisor to come up with what the supervisor thought was best, short of violating her Christian beliefs.”

Specifically, Ms. Sellers said that she was “more than happy to help any male with any aspect of their visit,” and said that she only objected to escorting transgender guests to the women’s locker room. 

The complaint then states that the manager “suggested” that another worker could escort transgender guests to the women’s locker room and that the plaintiff “assumed this to be an accommodation for her religious beliefs.”

However, the manager said she would have to run the accommodation by the human resources department.

When Ms. Sellers showed up for her next shift, she met with a member of the human resources department who said that she had violated the company’s transgender policy and that she would be suspended without pay. Ms. Sellers had not seen the policy before that meeting, according to the lawsuit. 

The human resources representative also allegedly stated that “Hershey wants you to leave your personal, religious, and political beliefs at the door.”

The lawsuit alleges that the company retaliated against Ms. Sellers by suspending her and sending her home after her supervisor granted her an accommodation. The complaint also says that Hershey engaged in religious discrimination by “telling her to leave her religious beliefs at the door.”

Ms. Sellers is seeking “compensatory damages, including lost wages and any and all other pecuniary damages for violation of Plaintiff’s rights and for the injuries she has suffered.”

In a statement, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Company  said it “typically [does] not discuss specific details of individual personnel matters.” However, it said that there are “clear differences between what has been reported and what is documented to have occurred.”

While the lawsuit says that Ms. Sellers discussed her religious beliefs with her manager and sought an accommodation, Hershey says “no religious accommodation was requested before or during the spa service” and that the plaintiff “did not assist the guest for religious reasons.”

Hershey says Ms. Sellers is still employed and that it asked her to submit a religious accommodation form. 

An attorney for Ms. Sellers, Andrea Shaw, told the Sun that her client requested an accommodation but “corporate HR came in person and rejected Jeriah’s religious accommodation request by telling her to keep her religious beliefs out of the workplace, and suspended her.”