A former employee at Butler's AK Steel manufacturing plant filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming she was fired because she is a transgender woman.

The suit, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, alleges the steelmaker fired Alyssa Lawson due to her gender transition and after a two-year stretch of “discrimination and harassment in the workplace.”

An AK Steel spokesperson did not return a phone call seeking comment.

According to the lawsuit, Lawson was fired in April 2019 because she wore improper safety gloves. But Lawson argues that reason is “pretextual and unworthy of belief,” instead claiming her job was terminated “because she did not conform to gender stereotypes.”

The complaint also alleges a pattern of discriminatory behavior on behalf of the company since Lawson transitioned in 2017, from both co-workers and employer.

Lawson claims that an employee spit in her drink, that a lock was placed on her locker so she could not access it, and that she was suspended for five days for damaging a hose, “despite the fact that (AK Steel) was aware that the plaintiff was not the individual responsible.”

Her lawsuit also claims that Lawson was suspended for 10 days for a “procedural violation,” something she alleges would not be applied to non-transgender or male employees.

Lawson seeks relief under the federal Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1991 as well as the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, which both prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.

While the lawsuit does not specify an exact dollar amount, Lawson seeks punitive and compensatory damages as well as attorneys' fees and “additional relief as may be just and proper.”