News · Trans Rights
The woman who ran Philadelphia’s LGBT+ affairs office for four years is now suing the city she worked for. Celena Morrison-McLean filed a federal discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration on Thursday, October 22, saying she was harassed as a transgender woman, blocked from advocating for trans and nonbinary city workers, and fired one day after she put her complaints in writing to human resources.
Her case is the third from a former city official who worked on diversity and inclusion, and the second this year to raise questions about how City Hall treats its own LGBT+ employees.
What the lawsuit says
Morrison-McLean led the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs from 2020, when former Mayor Jim Kenney appointed her as the first openly transgender person to hold the job, until November 2024. Her complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, says the Parker administration made the office’s mission hard to carry out.
According to the filing, unnamed supervisors shut down her push for trans and nonbinary employees, including her effort to get the city to use they/them pronouns. She also alleges that when she advocated for nonbinary athletes to take part in city-sponsored races, Chief of Staff Tiffany Thurman told her the mayor saw her commitment to the community as an obstacle to the administration’s work.
“not doing that they/them thing”
What Morrison-McLean says several supervisors told her, as quoted in her complaint and reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer
The suit says the harassment got personal. She describes a rising pattern of discriminatory behavior in her final months on the job: unwanted sexual advances, being outed as a transgender woman by a city employee, and intrusive questions about her transition.
Fired a day after the HR email
The timing is the heart of the retaliation claim. Shortly before she was fired, Morrison-McLean says she told Brandee Anderson, then the city’s chief diversity officer and for a time her supervisor, that city leadership viewed the LGBT+ affairs director as a “rogue employee.” She says she told Anderson the situation made her feel like throwing it all away, meaning she was thinking about resigning.
HR staff then questioned her about that phrase, treating it as a violent threat, the complaint says. The next morning she emailed one of those HR representatives describing the sexual advances and the other incidents that she says made City Hall a hostile place to work. She was terminated the day after that. Her termination letter, according to the filing, said her actions were not indicative of the city’s leadership and cited an untenable incompatibility with the city’s expectations.
Who the complaint names
- The City of Philadelphia
- Chief Deputy Mayor Vanessa Garrett Harley
- Chief of Staff Tiffany Thurman
- Human Resources Manager Angela Grady
- Director of Administrative Services Kathleen Lonie
The city’s answer
City spokesperson Joe Grace said the Parker administration stands behind its support for and its actions affirming Philadelphia’s LGBT+ community, and said the mayor knows a vibrant and inclusive community is a priority for the city. He pointed to Parker’s appointment of former prosecutor Tito Valdes in March 2026 to lead the office, and to Executive Order 13-24, which Parker signed in 2024 and which renamed the agency from the Office of LGBT Affairs to the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and expanded the Mayor’s Advisory Board on LGBTQ+ Affairs.
Philadelphia Gay News reported that the administration’s statement said the mayor’s One Philly agenda deeply values and embraces every person in Philadelphia
. Morrison-McLean’s filing takes the opposite view of that same executive order, arguing it limited her authority and her ability to do the job.
Riley Ross, the attorney representing Morrison-McLean, said he looks forward to getting justice for his client.
Not the first suit
Morrison-McLean is the third former city official who worked on diversity and inclusion to sue the Parker administration over what they describe as systemic discrimination. Leslie Marant, who ran diversity work for the Police Department and was fired in the administration’s first days, sued in October 2025. Brandee Anderson, the former chief diversity officer, sued in July 2026, claiming she was fired as part of a broader effort to suppress that work.
Anderson’s complaint pointed to the treatment of Morrison-McLean as evidence. It alleged that Garrett Harley told Anderson to document Morrison-McLean out of her job, in other words to build a paper trail leading to her dismissal, and that Garrett Harley mocked her in a meeting with other officials by saying she used a deep male tone to intimidate staff.
Morrison-McLean’s own suit, though, puts Anderson on the other side of the ledger. She alleges Anderson was part of the problem, and that when she raised how bad things had gotten, Anderson responded with “but you look fabulous” and an offer of a hug, which Morrison-McLean says she took as an attempt to manipulate her.
How we got here
- 2020Mayor Jim Kenney appoints Celena Morrison-McLean to lead the city’s LGBT+ affairs office, the first openly transgender person in the role.
- March 2024She and her husband, Darius McLean, are detained and arrested by a Pennsylvania State Police trooper during a traffic stop on I-76. Video of the stop goes national.
- 2024Mayor Parker signs Executive Order 13-24, renaming the office and expanding the mayor’s LGBT+ advisory board.
- November 2024Morrison-McLean leaves the post. Her lawsuit says she was fired.
- August 2025She and Darius McLean sue the former trooper, Andrew Zaborowski, for assault, false imprisonment and battery. That case is still pending.
- March 2026Parker names Tito Valdes to lead the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs.
- July 2026Former chief diversity officer Brandee Anderson sues the administration, citing Morrison-McLean’s treatment.
- October 22, 2026Morrison-McLean files her federal discrimination and retaliation lawsuit.
Why it lands hard here
The city created the office by mayoral executive order in 2008 and wrote it into the city charter in 2015, and the job has carried real weight here ever since. Morrison-McLean’s husband, Darius McLean, runs the William Way LGBT Community Center. These are not distant names to Philly’s LGBT+ community. They are people our community sees at the ribbon cuttings and the vigils.
That is what makes the allegations sting, and it is also why the facts matter more than the feelings. Nothing in the complaint has been tested in court. The city has not filed its answer. What we have right now is one side’s sworn account, a short statement from the administration, and a docket number in the Eastern District.
What happens next. The city will respond in federal court, and the case will take months at a minimum. We will follow the filings as they come in. If you are a city employee who has experienced discrimination at work, the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations takes complaints, and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs remains the city’s point of contact for LGBT+ residents.
Sources
- The Philadelphia Inquirer: Philly’s former LGBTQ+ affairs director sued the Parker administration for discrimination (October 23, 2026)
- Philadelphia Gay News: Lawsuits allege pattern of discrimination in Parker administration and city gov’t (October 27, 2026)
- Hoodline: Former Philadelphia LGBTQ+ Affairs Director Sues, Alleging Discrimination and Retaliation (October 2026)
- The Philadelphia Inquirer: Mayor Parker’s former DEI chief sues the city for discrimination in tell-all lawsuit (July 29, 2026)
- The Philadelphia Inquirer: Ex-Philadelphia LGBTQ official sues Pennsylvania State Police for 2024 traffic stop that led to arrests (August 9, 2025)
