Feds to Employers: Give Trans Workers Access to Bathrooms That Match Gender Identity

[William769]

OSHA's new guidelines make it clear why allowing trans employees to self-determine their restrooms is in everyone's best interests.

The federal Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), at the urging of the National Center for Transgender Equality, issued new guidance Monday telling U.S. employers that transgender employees should be allowed to use the work bathrooms that accord with their gender identities.

OSHA, a department perhaps best known for monitoring workplace safety standards — from hardhats for construction workers to maximum work hours allowed for youth laborers — made it clear in "Guide to Restroom Access for Transgender Workers" that allowing trans workers to pee in peace is very much a part of a worksite's health and safety.

Though the four-page document's guidelines are not legally binding, they are a resource for employers who sincerely wonder how to accomodate transgender employees, and represent yet another statement of support from the Obama administration for trans workers. In December, then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government would now consider antitrans workplace discrimination to be a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Four months later, the Department of Justice made a historic move in suing Southeastern Oklahoma State University on behalf of a transgender employee who alleged workplace discrimination.

OSHA's new guidelines draw attention to specific work situations that often get overlooked in a broader conversation about trans discrimination, pointing out two realistic workplace scenarios that can be easily avoided if employers make their stance on restroom access clear: the fact that trans employees can feel "segregated" if told to only use single-stall or gender-neutral restrooms, and that many trans employees will hold their bodily functions in order to avoid using restrooms entirely, creating serious health risks.

http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2015/06/02/feds-employers-give-trans-workers-access-bathrooms-match-gender-iden

[Iliyah]

1. K & R

[countryjake]

2. kickety

[bigtree]

3. reminder

Martin O'Malley and the 'Fairness for All Marylanders Act'

With the stroke of a pen, Maryland became the 18th state to provide protections for transgender individuals statewide.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, extending housing, public accommodations, and employment protections to transgender citizens and visitors of the state.

"We are closer today to creating an open, respectful, inclusive world that we want for all of our children," O'Malley said prior to signing the bill. "This bill gives us another step closer to that vision and to that reality."

read: http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2014/05/15/md-gov-signs-trans-nondiscrimination-bill-law


“We are closer today to creating an open, respectful, inclusive world that we want for all of our children,” said O’Malley before signing Senate Bill 212 — the Fairness for All Marylanders Act of 2014 — into law. “This bill gives us another step closer to that vision and to that reality.”

O’Malley signing SB 212 into law capped off an eight-year effort to add gender identity and expression to Maryland’s anti-discrimination act. The measure is also the latest in a series of progressive bills that include the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples, raising the state’s minimum wage and decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana that the governor has signed during his two terms in office.

“It shows how much this governor cares about the LGBT community, how much he cares in general about making sure every person has an opportunity to succeed, to live their lives as who they are, to love who they choose and still have a chance to make a living, to have a house, to enjoy life in Maryland,” the Montgomery County Democrat told the Blade. “It’s a substantial record of achievement in a state where people said it could never be done.”

Maryland joins 17 other states, D.C. and Puerto Rico that have added gender identity and expression to their anti-discrimination laws once the law takes effect on Oct. 1. The state’s hate crimes statute also include trans-specific protections.

read: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2014/05/15/breaking-omalley-signs-maryland-transgender/


“It’s long overdue,” he told the Washington Blade on Wednesday during a telephone interview from Annapolis. “Discrimination against people is wrong. This is a good bill and it’s about time we prohibit discrimination against transgendered individuals in Maryland.”

O’Malley noted to the Blade he signed the state’s first trans rights ordinance in 2002 when he was mayor of Baltimore. The governor subsequently testified in support of statewide proposals that had gone before Annapolis lawmakers.

“We did not experience any problems with the implementation of the bill in Baltimore,” said O’Malley in response to a question about why it took more than a decade for legislators to approve a statewide trans rights measure. “Perhaps this bill took longer given the saliency of the marriage equality fight and how many tries it took us to get that done.”

“When you have the opportunity to serve as an elected executive, you work hard everyday in the hopes that by the time your time is over you can make your state a better place, a stronger place, a more open and inclusive place that you can accomplish meaningful things that bring people together rather than to drive them apart,” O’Malley told the Blade. “That’s what we’ve been able to do in the eight years of this O’Malley-Brown administration.”

read: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2014/05/14/omalley-sign-maryland-trans-rights-bill-thursday/#sthash.cjLXGWaj.dpuf


Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley signs transgender rights bill into law. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

[TheCount_]

4. Good

We need transgender rights. Rights for some means rights for all.