Frances Coombe is requesting more than $300,000 in lost income and is seeking damages for emotional distress over the downfall of his reputation and career.
A transgender model is suing his New York-based modeling agency for discrimination, claiming it killed his career after he transitioned and branded him “insufficiently masculine” to work in men’s fashion.
Frances Coombe, 30, who is a Canadian catwalk model, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, claiming Muse Model Management NYC and its president Conor Kennedy had violated his civil rights protecting gender identity.
Coombe is requesting more than $300,000 in lost income and is seeking damages for emotional distress over the downfall of his reputation and career, the lawsuit said.
“It is no surprise that models evolve their looks, and I had been moving towards more androgyny for quite some time,” he told the Daily Beast in a statement.
The high fashion model said several other models — both male and female — at Muse Model Management had also been moving toward androgynous looks, but did not receive the same pushback.
Coombe, who has walked for the likes of Marc Jacobs and Gucci, said he told his agency that he no longer wanted to model as a female and requested to do male work, but Muse allegedly “refused” and “constructively terminated” his contract, according to the suit.
