The U.S. Government has mandated the use of preferred pronouns in every workplace in America in a clampdown on ‘discrimination’ against transgender people under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. John Murawski in UnHerd has more.
As of this week, failing to respect a queer person’s non-binary pronouns is the newest form of workplace discrimination recognised under the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act in the United States.
The new pronoun mandate for workers, employers and even customers was issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as part of the civil rights agency’s first move in a quarter-century to bring its workplace guidelines up to date with legal precedent and evolving social norms.
The 189-page document, which is technically legally non-binding but spells out the agency’s policies on investigating discrimination complaints, says that misgendering must be repeated and intentional, not a slip of the tongue, to rise to the level of workplace harassment. In its guidelines, the EEOC also decreed that it’s discriminatory for an employer to deny a transgender person access to a bathroom they feel best matches their gender identity, even if that invades the privacy of the other workers, or, in some cases, conflicts with another employee’s religious convictions.
Read more: U.S. Government Mandates Preferred Pronouns in All Workplaces