A month ago, I discussed the EEOC’s April Fool’s Day decision opining (among other things) that “there is no cause to question” that a man who thinks he’s a woman is really a woman and that it’s unlawful sex discrimination to bar such a man from sharing restroom, locker, and shower facilities with women.
In its most recent step in its avowed campaign to include “coverage of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals under Title VII’s sex discrimination provisions,” the EEOC has sued Deluxe Financial Services Corp. for sex discrimination against a transgender employee. The complaint asserts (among other absurdities) that the employee—a man who thinks he’s a woman—somehow genuinely “is female.” The PC inanities continue, as the complaint states that the employee “is transgender, having been assigned the male sex at birth but having a female gender identity.”
The EEOC complains that the company has a “policy or practice that discriminates against transgender female employees [translation: men who think they’re women] by precluding them use of a restroom that is consistent with their sex.” (Wait, I thought that transgender activists insisted that gender is fundamentally different from sex.) Believe it or not, the company “did not preclude female employees who were not transgender from using the women’s restroom.” In other words, it dared to reserve the women’s restroom for … women.
The EEOC further charges (and highlights in its press release, linked above) that supervisors and co-workers subjected the employee to a hostile working environment by (among other things) “intentionally using the wrong gender pronouns to refer to her.” (Emphasis added.) Yes, it’s now the EEOC’s position that it is “wrong,” and hostile, to use masculine pronouns to refer to a man who thinks he’s a woman.
I’ll repeat what I said a month ago: I believe that individuals who identify as “transgender” should receive compassionate help. But that shouldn’t entail requiring everyone else to indulge and embrace their confusion.