Labor Department adds ‘transgender status, gender identity’ to workplace discrimination list

Regulation to ‘Avoid the Gender Binary’


by Elizabeth Harrington

Implementation of the Nondiscrimination and Equal Opportunity Provisions of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, Labor
ACTION: Notice of Proposed RulemakingRead here .pdf text s3.amazonaws.com

The Department of Labor is seeking to remove the terms “he” and “she” from a regulation prohibiting discrimination in the workforce in an effort to “avoid the gender binary.”

The agency is also adding “sex stereotyping, transgender status, and gender identity” to the list of types of employment discrimination banned under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. If adopted, the regulation would cost job training centers millions of dollars to change their equal employment opportunity posters to include “gender identity.”

The agency issued a proposed rule Tuesday that updates the nondiscrimination provisions of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act signed by President Obama in 2014, which provides funding for job training.

The law forbids groups that receive program funding to discriminate on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, political affiliation or belief, and, for beneficiaries only, citizenship status.” The new rule, which will be open to public comment for 60 days, updates the list to include gender identity.

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