Winn-Dixie Stores is trying to shut down a web site protesting the company's actions in firing a truck driver who cross-dressed off-duty, says the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Winn-Dixie fired Peter Oiler because they thought he'd harm the company's image -- but now they see it's their own discrimination that's harming their image," said Matt Coles, Director of the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project.
For the second holiday season in a row, ShameOnWinnDixie.com provides background on Oiler, as well as information on the ACLU's pending federal lawsuit on his behalf. Oiler worked for nearly 20 years at Winn-Dixie's Louisiana branch before being fired for occasionally cross-dressing away from work. The web site, created and maintained by a coalition of activists working with the ACLU, also includes contact information for Oiler's former supervisors and executives involved in firing him.
In a letter to a transgendered woman in rural Alabama who helped design the web site more than a year ago, Winn-Dixie's corporate attorney demanded that the web site be removed from the Internet "immediately." Coles said Winn-Dixie's demands are groundless.
The ACLU's lawsuit on behalf of Oiler claims that Winn-Dixie violated state and federal laws barring sex discrimination by firing Oiler because he did not conform to the company's stereotyped notions of how a man ought to look and act. The case is set to go to trial next year.