by 365Gay.com

NEW ORLEANS -- Winn-Dixie Stores, the Southern grocery giant and Fortune 500 company that has been under attack for 14 months for firing a truck driver who cross-dressed off-duty, is trying to shut down a Web site protesting the company's actions.

"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 American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian & Gay Rights Project.

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 transgender woman in rural Alabama who helped design the Web site, Winn-Dixie's corporate attorney demanded that the site be removed from the Internet "immediately." Coles said Winn-Dixie's demands are groundless.

"ShameOnWinnDixie.com isn't going anywhere," said Courtney Sharp, a transgender activist in New Orleans who helped organize the Web site and the holiday-time mobilizations. "This attempt to bully us out of holding Winn-Dixie accountable won't work. We're more energized than ever because our message is clearly getting through, and Winn-Dixie is nervous."

Meanwhile, activists in Georgia and Florida announced that they will protest outside Winn-Dixie national headquarters in Jacksonville on Jan. 4, marking the two-year anniversary of Oiler's firing.

Posted December 19, 2001