CORRECTIONS BUREAU

Virginia Prison Staffer Fired After Alleged Tampon Interrogation to Sue State for Sexual Discrimination

“But for Flores’s menstruation and use of a tampon—conditions inextricable from her sex and her child-bearing capacity—she would not have been discharged"

A Virginia prison dental hygienist who was fired from her job after allegedly being interrogated over a tampon found by a body scanner can sue the state for sexual discrimination, a judge ruled last week. Joyce Flores says she was taken in for questioning for hours at her job at the Augusta Correctional Center after the scanner found the hygiene product on her person during a scan in July 2019. Though Flores was able to prove that she was indeed menstruating and not smuggling contraband, according to a lawsuit filed last year, the prison still fired her over it, she claims. “But for Flores’s menstruation and use of a tampon—conditions inextricable from her sex and her child-bearing capacity—she would not have been discharged,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen wrote in his decision allowing the lawsuit to proceed.