New Jersey Transgender Man Says Firing Was Discriminatory

El'Jai Devoureau wants to be treated just like any other man. The 39-year-old New Jersey resident was born into a woman's body but says he's known from the very beginning that he is male.

Apparently, though, Devoureau wasn't man enough for his former employer: The drug treatment center where he worked watching men urinate fired him from after finding out that he was transgendered. The center only hires men to monitor other men taking their drug tests.

Now, Devoureau, who had sex-change surgery five years ago, is suing the center for discrimination, a suit some legal experts say is the first ever to define who is and is not a man in the workplace and to challenge employment bias against transgendered Americans in sex-specific jobs.

During his second day on the job at Urban Treatment Associates in Camden, N.J., in June, Devoureau says that his manager called him into her office and confronted him with a rumor she'd heard that he'd had sex-change surgery. When he refused to answer, he says, she fired him.

"I told her, 'I'm a man and I can do the job,'" Devoureau recalled in a phone interview with AOL News today. "But she just said, 'You're fired.'"

The job itself -- to make sure clients taking drug tests use their own urine -- may be unglamorous. But Devoureau says that he has the same right to perform the task as any other man in the position. And he said he wants to be judged based on the quality of his work, not his gender identity.

"They shouldn't judge you based on who they are but how you do the job," he said.

New Jersey added "gender identity and expression" to its non-discrimination laws in 2006, and Devoureau's attorney, Michael Silverman, said the case could have huge implications for transgender individuals across the country.

"Only 12 states protect transgender people from employment discrimination, so the stakes here are high," he said today. "The question is, will the court recognize that he's male?"

Other authorities do recognize Devoureau as a man. His Social Security card, New Jersey driver's license and Georgia birth certificate all list him as a male. Devoureau identifies as a man, has undergone hormone therapy and is engaged to be married to a woman -- and for him, the answer to that question is clear.

"I've been a man ever since I've been a person. When I was little I was climbing trees, I was taking my shirt off, I was doing all the things little boys do. My fiancee knows who I am. She loves me, her kids love me."

In a court filing in response to Devoureau's lawsuit, Urban Treatment Associates challenged Devoureau's gender when it said that firing him "was not done in an unlawful or discriminatory manner, since the sex of the employee engaged in that particular job position is a bona fide occupational qualification, reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the Respondent's business."

Shannon Minter of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute said the lawsuit offers a chance to affirm gender identity and expression in the workplace. "It really is a wonderful opportunity to get the message out that a transgender man really is a man," he said today. "It's very significant."

An attorney representing Urban Treatment Associates did not immediately return a request for comment today from AOL News.