Rock legends tolerated transgender employee sexually harassing female crew: Trump-tied firm lawsuit

As President Trump works to eradicate males who identify as girls and women from female sports and intimate spaces via executive orders, sending federally funded institutions scrambling, females are filling in the gaps through litigation.

Professional lighting technician Jessica Featherston sued the American rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a "holiday hit machine" renowned for its rock operas and lavish live shows, and related entities for allegedly tolerating sexual harassment by a transgender touring employee with "fully intact male genitalia" and removing Featherston from an upcoming tour after she complained.

Featherston worked with Amber Robertson, formerly known as Michael, on the 2022 and 2023 TSO tours, according to the suit in Texas state court led by the Independent Women's Forum and America First Legal, founded by two-time Trump White House aide Stephen Miller. (TSO's name is a geographical adjective, unrelated to gender ideology.)

They were "on friendly terms" in 2022, when Robertson "abided by the shower schedule" by leaving before the few female tour staff arrived to shower, but in fall 2023 Robertson began flouting the schedule by waiting – sometimes naked or not "fully dressed" – for females to enter the women's shower 45 minutes to an hour later, the suit says.

It follows Featherston's complaints to the Texas Workforce Commission last summer, as reported by the Daily Mail. While those complaints didn't name the alleged harasser, they included personal details missing from the suit.

Robertson is three inches taller than Featherston, "incredibly muscular and strong" and started identifying as a woman after learning "his wife had cheated on him," the TWC complaints say. The suit calls Robertson "substantially taller and more muscular than Featherston" and says the gender transition started in 2021, without giving a reason.

The lawsuit says Featherston received "right-to-sue" letters from TWC and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in December. She's seeking actual and punitive damages under federal and state law.

Featherston's lawyers, including local counsel Murphy Ball Stratton, did not respond to requests for the TWC complaints or the lawsuit as filed, with a docket number. Neither Trans-Siberian Orchestra nor live events company Production Resource Group responded to requests to their website contact forms.

The alleged harasser is not named as a defendant in the suit, and Just the News could not identify the correct Michael or Amber Robertson – a name shared with a mother charged with neglect in the disappearance of her infant – to seek comment. 

Trump's executive order on women's sports prompted the NCAA to ban males from women's competition, while in D.C.'s backyard the Virginia High School League initially resisted the order but started backtracking after GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered the league to "change course  immediately" so the state wouldn't lose money. VHSL complied Monday.

Northern Virginia, home to the richest counties in America owing to federal largesse, has endured several transgender sexual harassment school scandals in recent years. ABC 7 reported last month that sex offender Richard Kenneth Cox, who identifies as a woman, was charged with entering the girl's locker room at a high school pool and exposing himself to a girl.

Another Trump order directs federal prisons to house males who identify as women in men's prisons, though a President Reagan-nominated federal judge blocked it. California is now prosecuting a transgender inmate for raping female inmates while incarcerated in a women's prison under the state's gender identity prison placement law.

"Robertson intentionally exposed Robertson’s male genitalia to Featherston, physically and verbally intimidated Featherston, entered Featherston’s sleeping area without permission, and placed Robertson’s soiled undergarments in Featherston’s sleeping area," Featherston's suit alleges.

The defendants violated Title VII federal workplace discrimination law and Texas laws through sexual harassment, "failure to remedy," disparate treatment and retaliation, as well as common-law breach of contract for "blacklist[ing]" her after an oral offer to rehire her.

The suit invokes disparate treatment because a male crew chief had expressed fear that because Featherston is a "white, Texan woman, who’s Christian and a Republican,” she would report Robertson for harassment on their first tour together.

The suit identifies three consecutive days in November 2023 that were especially troubling for the female crew members, only three of whom were on the tour. 

"Hey girls, now that we are all here, let’s all get naked and have girls’ shower time," Robertson allegedly told them when they arrived at the women's showers on the 17th of that month.  

Featherston found Robertson "naked and waiting for a woman to enter the shower room" the 18th – AFL's X post says with "fully exposed male genitalia" – and she radioed the lighting crew that Robertson had stayed far longer than the schedule permitted. 

The women then asked for "individual shower stalls for women" on future dates, leading a PRG crew chief to mock Featherston for seeking "safe showers," the suit alleges. 

The next day a half-naked Robertson confronted Featherston during women's shower time for going to "production" instead of telling Robertson she was uncomfortable, leading Featherston to report the incident to superiors "for her physical safety."

While the TSO defendants gave women their own stalls on the next date, they didn't do it consistently on future dates, and Robertson continued intimidating Featherston specifically with soiled underwear and barging into her sleeping area, according to the suit.

Featherston's "joint employers" — the TSO defendants, PRG and its "shell company" Showpay — turned a blind eye to Featherston's "multiple" reports against Robertson, whose harassment  was "well-known throughout the tour camp," the suit says.

Working on the Foo Fighters' summer 2023 tour, PRG’s lighting crew chief "orally offered" to rehire Featherston for the band's 2024 tour and mentioned her planned return on "multiple occasions" to other lighting staff, while the stage manager affirmed she'd be back as well. "In the ordinary course of business, PRG and Showpay allow a crew chief to make staffing decisions for his or her assigned tours," the suit says.

Though PRG labor coordinator Darlene Jones promised Featherston her harassment report against Robertson in February 2024 wouldn't have "repercussions" on her work for PRG, days later PRG senior labor coordinator Chris Townsend told Featherston she wouldn't be on the Foo Fighters' tour that year and didn't give her specific alternative options, the suit says.

She had already turned down other opportunities and didn't get another offer from PRG despite working for them regularly for eight years, the suit says.

PRG apparently misled Featherston's lighting crew chief on why he couldn't bring her on the 2024 tour as planned, according to the suit. He said the company decided to only bring crew chiefs, which turned out to be false during the tour itself.

The company hired a comparably experienced replacement – perhaps a chief in "name only" – whose "poor workmanship caused several serious workplace safety issues" during the 2024 tour and who "publicly sexually harassed female employees while on tour." 

Featherston's old boss believed "no one was available" to replace the problematic employee but "PRG and Showpay never asked Featherston" if she could come back, the suit says.

"PRG, Showpay, and the TSO Defendants failed to protect Featherston from harassment in group shower rooms" and showed "reckless indifference to Featherston’s right to be free from sexual harassment in the workplace" through its inaction, including Robertson's escalating harassment against Featherston herself, it says.