Transgender rights take center stage
It’s been a big week for the rights of transgender Americans. Caitlyn (née Bruce) Jenner had her coming out party on the cover of Vanity Fair and become the quickest person to reach 1 million followers on Twitter, in less than four hours, besting President Obama’s record from two weeks ago.
The EEOC published a guide addressing the rights of LGBT employees working in the
federal sector [pdf], and continues to litigate cases under Title VII’s
sex-discrimination prohibitions on behalf of transgender employees.
OSHA published a statement of “best practices” for bathroom access for transgender employees
[pdf], clarifying that employees should be entitled to use the bathroom of
the gender with which they identify, and that no employer should require an
employee to use a specific gender’s bathroom, or a segregated transgender-only
bathroom facility.
While we wait for the law the
catch up to society’s opinion on LGBT rights (i.e., same-sex marriage
rights and official statutory extension of Title VII’s protections to LGBT
employees), our federal agencies are doing the best they can to modernize these
laws for us. If you are still discriminating against LGBT employees,
it’s time to stop. You are officially behind the times. It was not that long
ago that LGBT rights were a joke. Now, we are on the verge of a breakthrough.
Are you going to ride the wave, or hold onto the jam of the door that Caitlyn
Jenner just kicked down kicking and screaming. The choice, for now, is yours,
unless you run afoul of the EEOC, OSHA, or a court, each of which is doing is
best to do what Congress has, thus far, refused.
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