EEOC determines it’s not discrimination to have restrooms for men OR women

A precedent-setting ruling from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has established that it is legal for a federal agency employer to maintain separate restrooms for men and women.

Those claiming transgender identities do not need to be given the “right” to use the facilities of the opposite sex.

The ruling came in a fight launched by a civilian IT specialist at Fort Riley, Kansas, who long had lived as a male, which he is.

Then, suddenly, he announced he was a woman, and intended to use female-designated bathrooms and locker rooms. Managers said no.

The EEOC that was handed the fight, and found, “When we follow this path to its logical conclusion—and as applied to the facts presented before us—we find that Title VII permits a federal agency employer to maintain single-sex bathrooms and similar intimate spaces. And it permits a federal agency employer to exclude employees, including trans-identifying employees, from opposite-sex facilities.”

It said, “Critics of today’s opinion may attempt to argue that excluding trans identifying individuals from opposite-sex bathrooms would turn the civil rights clock back to a time when whites-only signs were ubiquitous on bathroom doors. … However, that an employer is permitted to maintain single-sex bathrooms in no way opens the door to segregated bathrooms based on other protected characteristics, including race.”

The EEOC continued, “As we have carefully explained, single-sex bathrooms are permissible only because the sexes are not similarly situated in this specific context. Again, this is because ‘[p]hysical differences between men and women . . . are enduring.’ In contrast, physical distinctions between individuals of different races are not enduring; they are literally skin-deep. When it comes to bathrooms, there can be no doubt that members of different races are similarly situated. To separate bathrooms by race would serve ‘no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination.'”

It explained, “Whereas race-segregated bathrooms promote naked favoritism for one race over another, single-sex bathrooms do ‘not . . . favor one sex over another, but [rather] . . . protect the privacy of both sexes.’ Single-sex bathrooms continue to provide trans identifying employees with the same benefits and privacy protections as their non trans-identifying coworkers. This is equality, not bigotry.”

The man who brought the complaint claimed he was being subjected to a violation of Title VII.

The agency ruling said, “No federal court has yet authoritatively addressed whether Title VII permits single-sex bathrooms and other intimate spaces in the workplace. Nor has any federal court yet authoritatively addressed whether Title VII requires employers to permit trans-identifying employees to access bathrooms and other intimate spaces otherwise reserved for the opposite sex. … In the absence of guiding precedent, we have no choice but to undertake our own interpretation of the statute in order to adjudicate this appeal.”

A report in the Washington Stand said the ruling reverses a 2015 decision made during Barack Obama’s White House tenure that demanded federal agencies “allow transgender-identifying employees access to bathrooms in accord with their ‘gender identities,’ not their biological sexes.”

The report said in that case the EEOC said the worker was barred from using a particular bathroom on account of his “identification as transgender.”

The conclusion for the new case, the report said, was that, “If an employer can lawfully bar some men from using the women’s bathroom (or some women from using the men’s bathroom), then an employer can lawfully bar all men from using the women’s bathroom (and all women from using the men’s bathroom).”