Rosario Dawson Gets A Ruling On Lawsuit Accusing Her Of Anti-Trans Discrimination

By Doug Norrie | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

Rosario Dawson may be able to breathe a little easier now that a case against her has been thrown out of court. For the last couple of years, there had been the threat of legal proceedings against her stemming from an incident that happened back in 2019. It was then that the threat of an anti-trans discrimination lawsuit began ramping up that could have possibly threatened her career. But the case has been thrown out of court and any actions against the actress and her family totally dismissed. 

The case in question against Rosario Dawson stems from 2019 when Dedrek Finley, an apparent family friend who sometimes performed odd jobs for the Dawson family, leveled numerous claims of abuse and discrimination against the actress. Finley, a transgender man, said that when he told the family he was transitioning it was met with verbal and physical abuse from both Dawson and her mother. He made claims that included targeted treatment from multiple members of the family and he was apparently seeking damages for the reported abuse. 

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Apparently, Finley had been a close family friend of Rosario Dawson for many decades, moving out to California and being helped financially by the Dawson family. Rosario admits as much saying she had been hurt by the allegations made by Finley against both her and her mother. Finley had claimed that Rosario Dawson and others had misgendered him after he told them of the transition and had even physically assaulted him in an altercation back in 2019. This led to the filing of the lawsuit in 2020. 

Originally the lawsuit against Rosario Dawson had contained 20 different allegations though as the motions and pretrial work went on those were pared down to just two. And then the case began to fall apart a bit more back in September when Finley’s legal representation opted to leave the case altogether. That left Finley representing himself.

Finally, in early May, the court had requested more information and evidence from Finley regarding the abuse allegations. When he didn’t provide them, the case was dismissed. That leaves Rosario Dawson, seemingly, in the clear on all counts. 

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In terms of Rosario Dawson, the dropping of the case likely quells some cancellation fears on the part of both the actress and Disney studios as well. She is gearing up to reprise her Ahsoka Tona role in a new series on the Disney+ platform. It will be a spinoff stemming from her introduction as the character in The Mandalorian. Considering the franchise already had one high-profile firing in Gina Carano, it’s unlikely they would have welcomed the idea of this going to a highly-publicized trial. 

In Ahsoka Tona Rosario Dawson will play the titular Jedi and apparently, she’ll be trying to hunt down Grand Admiral Thrawn as part of the main storyline. There’s currently no reported timeline on when it will hit Disney+ but a good bet would be sometime in 2022 with the Star Wars franchise on the platform really starting to ramp things up.