Taylor Close, who worked as a ferry deckhand for Kitsap Transit for more than four years, has filed a lawsuit against the agency in Kitsap County Superior Court over its refusal to let her breast pump onboard the ship.

A news release from her attorney’s office, Frank Freed Subit and Thomas in Seattle, says as Close was finishing her maternity leave in May 2021, she asked the agency about breast pumping while working on the ferry.

KT informed her that she could not work as a deckhand if she wanted to breast pump. The agency told her if she wanted to breast-pump at work she had to transfer to an onshore position at half her deckhand pay. Close reluctantly stopped breast-pumping and returned to work as a deckhand in June 2021, the release says.

Six months later, and after the agency had hired a new Human Resources director, Close learned that KT had allowed another female ferry deckhand to breast pump onboard the ship, the release adds. Livid that she had been forced to give up breastfeeding her son for no reason, Close resigned in December 2021.

Close said: “Kitsap Transit forced me to make a choice no mother should have to make, between my paycheck and breastfeeding my son. When I later learned that Kitsap Transit could have let me breast pump while working as a deckhand, I felt even more betrayed.”

Said Close’s attorney, Mike Subit: “Women will never achieve equality in male-dominated industries unless employers actively accommodate new mothers’ need to breast-pump in the workplace.”