Federal Employment Guidance Pushes Preferred Pronoun Use on Private Businesses
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EOCC) released new guidance on Monday regarding what constitutes harassment in the workplace. The guidelines claim that “misgendering” and sex-segregated facilities harass employees on the basis of gender identity.
EOCC’s newest guidance impacts most employers, private or public, though it does not carry equal authority as federal legislation, unlike Title VII, which makes it unlawful for employers to discriminate against a person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity), and national origin.
The Department of Justice explains that the use of gender-based slurs or offensive terms may constitute sexual harassment in the workplace. This suggests that a broad array of complaints could now be filed by employees as a result of the new guidelines issued by the EOCC.
The guidance states that “repeated and intentional use of a name or pronoun inconsistent with the individual’s known gender identity (misgendering); or the denial of access to a bathroom or other sex-segregated facility consistent with the individual’s gender identity,” constitutes harassment.
The guidelines were first announced last fall, prompting Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti to author a letter to the commission in opposition, which was then co-signed by 20 state attorney generals.
“Here, the proposed guidance would require employers to affirm or convey to employees and customers—often against religious conviction or deeply held personal belief—messages that a person can be a different gender from his or her biological sex, that gender has no correlation to biology, or that they endorse the use of pronouns like ‘they/them,’ ‘xe/xym/xyrs’ or ‘bun/bunself,'” the letter expressed.
Skrmetti said that the proposed guidance “flouts the First Amendment freedoms of religion and speech—yet EEOC rejects any role for accommodation of contrary religious beliefs or speech.”
Additionally, Skrmetti and the other state attorney generals allege that the proposal “shortchanges the long-recognized privacy and safety justifications for sex-segregated facilities in the course of requiring a radical and expensive restructuring of all employer facilities around gender identity.”
