(New York Times) — What is a man? For El’Jai Devoureau, this is not a rhetorical question. Mr. Devoureau, who was born physically female, is a man at the Motor Vehicle Commission, at theSocial Security office, at home, at job interviews. But what about at the urinal? In a case with a truly unusual set of factors, Mr. Devoureau filed a discrimination lawsuit on Friday that could break new ground in New Jersey and across the country, turning on the question of who is or is not a man. An employer fired Mr. Devoureau because it said only a man was allowed to do his job: watching men urinate into plastic cups at a drug treatment center. Mr. Devoureau, 39, says he has identified himself as a man all his life. In 2006, after he began taking male hormones and had sex-change surgery, he adopted the name El’Jai (pronounced like L. J.). A new birth certificate issued by the State of Georgia identifies him as male, as does his New Jersey driver’s license, and the Social Security Administrationmade the change in its records.
