A woman who is suing the Wikimedia Foundation for gender discrimination and wrongful termination filed a similar workplace discrimination lawsuit against a different employer three years ago, The Desk has learned.

The woman, Kayla Mae — who also goes by the name Kayla Morgan — employed the same attorney and law firm in a discrimination case brought against a Texas-based company called Security Brands, where she alleged ongoing workplace abuse and harassment because of her sexual orientation.

In both cases, Mae first filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and received letters that informed her of her right to sue. She hired Dallas-based Daryl Sinkule to represent her in the first case, and Sinkule is her attorney of record in the case against the Wikimedia Foundation.

In her first lawsuit, Mae said she worked as a senior software developer for Security Brands in 2020. From the moment she was hired, Mae says she was subjected to harassment because of her gender identity as a “lesbian female who presents as masculine.”

“She is sometimes perceived as transgender, although she is not,” the complaint read.

That is different from what Mae alleges in the case against Wikimedia Foundation, where her complaint identifies her as a “transgender female” who was subject to “gender stereotyping.”

In both cases, Mae said her supervisors subjected her to sexual harassment and discrimination. At Security Brands, the human resources director reportedly told Mae that she didn’t “agree with your lifestyle” and encouraged her to “follow Jesus” one week before terminating her employment.

Mae worked for Security Brands for about two months before her employment was terminated. In a motion to dismiss, Security Brands said Mae “was a lackluster software developer” and “refused to take direction or feedback on her work.” The case was ultimately settled out of court, according to records reviewed by The Desk.

In the case against Wikimedia Foundation, Mae alleges she was fired after raising numerous complaints about her direct supervisor, Dennis Mburugu, who also uses the name Dennis Muthuri and is based in Kenya. (Most of Wikimedia Foundation’s employees work remotely.)

Mae says the Wikimedia Foundation ultimately sustained certain complaints made against Mbuguru. But, despite those policy violations, she was still required to work on his team, which led to additional harassment and discrimination that was the basis for further complaints.

Months into her employment, Mae was reportedly asked to speak with two Wikimedia Foundation human resource directors, Tatiana Tompkins and DeJa Hamilton, and a senior software engineering manager named Sai Suman Cherukwada. After speaking with Mae about her complaints, Cherukwada fired her over Zoom, the lawsuit alleges.

Mae’s lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation seeks back pay, loss of wages and benefits, and court-related costs. The Wikimedia Foundation declined to comment on her allegations.

Wikimedia continues to employ Mburugu: A biography on the organization’s website says he is “an engineering manager on the Growth Team,” which is tasked with recruiting and retaining new volunteer editors for Wikipedia and other websites. Hamilton, Tompkins and Cherukwada are still Wikimedia employees as well, according to their LinkedIn pages.

An account on Instagram located by The Desk found numerous religious-oriented videos featuring Mbuguru speaking about different Biblical verses, but none that demonstrated outright hostility toward transgender people.

Still, the attitude toward LGBTQ+ individuals in Kenya is anything but welcome. Homosexuality and gay marriage in Kenya are illegal, and LGBTQ+ individuals have no protections when it comes to employment discrimination, according to Equaldex, a collaborative database that informs about LGBTQ+ rights around the world.

Public opinion toward LGBTQ+ individuals is often negative in Kenya, Equaldex noted, with most in Kenya saying they would not find it acceptable for individuals to express themselves as a different gender than what was assigned at birth.