Alisha Coleman spent nearly a decade taking 911 calls in Georgia. Her job was intense, her hours long, and like most people working in emergency services, she had to stay composed under pressure. But when her own body started turning against her, her employer acted like she’d committed a crime.
One day at work, Coleman experienced sudden, heavy menstrual bleeding. Not a surprise for someone in premenopause. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t something she could control. Management noticed. Instead of asking if she was okay, they handed her a disciplinary warning.
She was told, clearly and coldly, that if it happened again, she’d be out.
And then it did.
The second incident happened in the same job, same building. This time, she bled through her clothes. The response wasn’t a conversation or a solution. It was termination. The official reason: failure to maintain “personal hygiene.”
Coleman filed a lawsuit. She believed she was fired because of a medical condition tied to her gender — and that meant sex discrimination. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects workers from being fired over pregnancy and related medical issues. Surely this counted.
The lower court didn’t agree.
The judge dismissed her case, arguing that the situation didn’t fall under the protections of the Civil Rights Act. In short, heavy periods caused by premenopause weren’t seen as a protected medical condition.
So she lost her job. Then she lost her case.
This wasn’t a one-off.
Workplace discrimination tied to menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause is common — and rarely talked about. In many jobs, talking openly about periods is still taboo. Policies don’t exist. Support is rare. And when things go wrong, the burden falls on the woman to be “clean,” “professional,” and “in control.”
But biology doesn’t always cooperate.
Heavy bleeding during premenopause isn’t rare. It’s a known symptom. It can happen suddenly, even to women with otherwise regular cycles. But rather than adjusting workplace policy or offering a shred of compassion, the Bobby Dodd Institute treated it as a hygiene failure.
And the legal system backed them.
The ACLU eventually took on the case. They made it clear: firing someone for a normal biological event tied to womanhood is discrimination, period. Not metaphorically. Literally.
The case was quietly settled in 2017. The terms weren’t disclosed. No public apology was made.
But the story stuck.
Not because it was rare, but because it was a brutal example of how workplaces still treat women’s bodies as liabilities.
And how the system still expects women to bleed in silence.
