Woman insists she isn’t a man

Shifa Patel wore a full-length robe and hijab to her job as a secretary at a Muslim Girls' school in Lancashire. This concealed her features. But when pictures of her dressed in a shirt and trousers began to circulate at the school, concerned parents thought she looked like a man and demanded she be fired.

Patel insisted she wasn't faking her gender, that she really was a woman, and even had a doctor's certificate to prove it. But to no avail. The complaints continued, and she eventually decided to resign.

I've only been able to find one picture that shows her face (at freethinker.co.uk). Yeah, she looks kinda masculine. Nice of the parents to show such tolerance toward someone who made the mistake of looking slightly different. Links: Daily Mail, Telegraph.

Identity/Imposters

Posted on Mon Jun 22, 2009


Comments

I dunno...I think the masculine part is her hair...The picture above likes like a feminine male...
Posted by Maegan  on  Mon Jun 22, 2009  at  05:13 PM
the solution is to do some good ol' streaking round the school.
Posted by Saint Splattergut  on  Mon Jun 22, 2009  at  06:53 PM
Sometimes you just can't win...

Here in Hobart, just this week a football player got banned for a year or so for proving he was a man on live TV.

(that black spot on the re-released pics is awful small though! :shut: )
Posted by Joel B1  on  Tue Jun 23, 2009  at  02:16 AM
I'm more concerened that someone can be fired for being seen to be male . . . If her *race* was in question, and she was dismissed on suspicion of being a N****r, for example, there would be a hue and cry across the globe.

Fired for being one of those men, though, is quite acceptable it seems. Boy, I'm glad scientists have yet to create sperm from body cells so that men become obsolete and disposable in reality . . . Wait.
Posted by D F Stuckey  on  Thu Jul 09, 2009  at  05:46 AM
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