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.
Around October 2021, Coombe — who identified as non-binary at the time — alleges that Kennedy told him they would still pitch him for women’s jobs as there was no such thing as genderless work in the industry.
“In modeling life, you will be ‘she’ and ‘her’ until you arrive on set, non-binary models are not sought after in the casting process. When you show up for a job you can tell them your pronouns then,” Coombes recalled Kennedy telling him. “We’ll be sending you to women’s wear jobs and you have to separate your private life from your work life.”
Shortly after, Coombe arranged to have new digital photographs taken to “rebrand as a model with non-binary gender expression.”
While the photos were being taken, he alleges that Muse’s art department refused to allow him to wear menswear and “insisted” he wear a bikini.
In January 2022, he got his own photographs taken as a male and presented them to the agency the next month. Coombe began taking testosterone, which caused his appearance to become more masculine, around that time, the lawsuit revealed.
In May, his photographs were taken down from the website and not replaced until August. However, in July, he called for a meeting with the company, where he was told his looks were “insufficiently masculine” to be placed among the agency’s roster of male models, the complaint said.
Shortly after, Coombe saw a “rapid decline” in work opportunities and income. Muse Model Management made comments suggesting this was due to his changed gender identity, he alleged in the suit.
Coombe subsequently left the company, which he has been working at since 2011, alleging that he was “forced to resign” because it would not allow him to work in the male modeling space, according to the complaint.
He is now working as a male model for WE Speak Model Management.
Kennedy’s attorney called the lawsuit “legally flawed” in a statement to the Daily Beast Wednesday.
“Muse represented Frances Coombe for over 10 years as a model. It’s surprising and disappointing that Frances has filed this lawsuit, after a decade of working together, that lacks merit and is legally flawed,” lawyer Carlos Carvajal said. “We look forward to clearing Muse of any alleged wrongdoing.”
