In an effort to ‘avoid the gender binary,’ the Labor Department has proposed a new rule that seeks to remove the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’ from an anti-discrimination regulation.
The rule would update the nondiscrimination provisions of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, a law which “forbids groups that receive program funding to discriminate on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, political affiliation or believe, and, for beneficiaries only, citizenship status,”” the Washington Free Beacon reports.
The new rule, which was proposed on Tuesday, would add gender identity, transgender status, and sex stereotyping to the list.
“Our nation’s workforce system should reflect our commitment to diversity and the idea that America works best when we field a full team,” Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said during his announcement about the changes. “Protecting workers from discrimination based on disability, pregnancy, language proficiency, gender identity, and other factors is the right thing to do. This proposed rule provides welcome clarity on how to achieve that in the workforce system.”
To this end, the rule proposes to replace pronouns with “the individual,” “person,” and other identifiers that avoid the gender binary.
These changes, which have been deemed “necessary” by the agency, will cost taxpayers roughly $4 million, given all the new equal opportunity posters that will need to be updated and disseminated.
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