The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is facing legal action from a female crew member who says she had to shower with an “aggressive, muscular” transgender roadie during the stadium rock group’s recent tour.
Jessica Featherston, 38, of Texas, has filed complaints with the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) alleging employment discrimination. A trans crewmate exposed himself in the shared locker room and asked to “get naked and have a girlie shower moment” with his female coworkers.
After Featherston complained to management about sexual harassment, the trans roadie began retaliating against her by leaving soiled underwear next to her bed on the tour bus, she alleges in the discrimination complaint.
The blonde lighting installer told tour organizers she didn’t feel comfortable, but was allegedly mocked for needing “safe showers” and blacklisted from future tours, including a Foo Fighters concert in Texas, she says.
The case highlights the difficulties companies face in balancing the demands of men who identify as women and seek affirmation and biological women, who may not want to share a bathroom with them.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra musicians face lawsuit over sexual harassment at workplace
Jessica Featherston, a 38-year-old lighting installer from Austin, Texas, says the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s 2023 tour was one of her worst professional experiences.
“Women have a right to private spaces,” Featherston’s lawyer Gene Hamilton told The Mail.
‘Women have the right not to suffer discrimination, harassment or retaliation.’
The complaint was filed with the TWC this month against the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO), which is named after the Siberian railway and has nothing to do with sex changes.
The group was founded by Paul O’Neill in 1996 and is known for its over-the-top stage shows and progressive rock style similar to that of Pink Floyd, Yes and The Who. O’Neill died of an overdose in 2017.
Similar complaints were filed with TWC against New York-based live events company Production Resource Group (PRG), which organised the tour, and its shell company, Showpay. Neither TSO nor the two companies responded to our emails.
Featherston’s allegations detail how PRG hired her to work on TSO’s Winter Tour East of festive metal anthems beginning in November 2023, one of only three biological women on the tour’s production.
She says they were asked to share their dressing room with a California man who had recently begun identifying as a woman, a decision he made after learning “his wife had cheated on him,” the documents state.
The trans crew member, whose name has not been released, is three inches taller than Featherston and is “incredibly muscular and strong,” she says. He is biologically intact and “looks male” despite “his long hair and tight clothing.”
He was required to shower 45 minutes before the women, but at a Nov. 17 stop in Charleston, West Virginia, he allegedly stayed in the locker room and pressured the women to take “group” showers with him.
“Hey girls, now that we’re all here, let’s get naked and have a girls shower,” she reportedly said.
The next day in Greenville, South Carolina, Featherston says he was “still showering, completely naked and exposed” in the locker room about an hour after he was supposed to have finished and left.
Featherston says she has been “blacklisted” for future tours and the chance to work with Foo Fighters
Dozens of people work behind the scenes to manage the traveling shows of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra
She says she felt “uncomfortable” because “he could easily dominate her.”
She complained to PRG, but the crew chief allegedly mocked her for needing “safe showers,” she says.
Still, the company began providing a second bathroom for the biological women on tour.
However, this appears to have angered the trans crew member, who became “verbally and physically aggressive,” the complaint says.
On two occasions, he left dirty underwear next to Featherston’s bed on the tour bus.
“I felt as though this was a territorial act meant to further intimidate me and make me feel uncomfortable,” the documents say.
Featherston says she complained about sexual harassment to PRG’s workplace coordinator in February.
Instead of addressing her concerns, they allegedly put her on a “blacklist” so she couldn’t work with them again and kicked her out of an upcoming Foo Fighters concert, she says.
The alleged failure to act in the face of a potentially hostile work environment and allegations of retaliation would constitute violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Texas law, according to Hamilton, executive director of America First Legal, a conservative group.
The Texas Workforce Commission did not respond to our requests for comment. The group’s website says it can “investigate allegations of discrimination against employers” and issue a “fair and accurate” ruling.
The trans crew member has not been identified. The Mail refers to him with the pronouns “he” because of the conduct described in Featherston’s official complaints to a state government agency.
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra performs its 2014 Winter Tour at the Frank Erwin Center on December 18, 2014 in Austin, Texas
The arena rockers return to the stage at Prudential Center on December 22, 2021 in Newark, New Jersey.
AFL lawyer Gene Hamilton says trans rights went too far on this stadium rock tour
Hamilton, the lawyer, says that today the rights of trans women trample on those of biological women.
“Imagine telling a woman in the midst of the women’s rights movement of the 1960s that, after accomplishing much good, the culmination of the movement would result in her daughter or granddaughter not being able to shower at work without being exposed to a male penis,” she said.
“And then you’re told that if you oppose that biological male in the shower, you’re just a bigot. Well, unfortunately, that seems to be the current situation in critical sectors of society.”
Transgender rights groups say trans people should be treated according to the sex with which they identify.
But this puts them at odds with many women, who want to keep trans women and girls out of their bathrooms, sports teams and other places.
It has become a hot topic in America’s culture wars between conservatives and liberals, even as concerns mount over the dangers of trans medicine and the safety of biological women.