The federal government is teaming up with an advocacy group to recommend appropriate bathroom access for transgender workers.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Center for Transgender Equality announced the landmark partnership Monday, the
International Business Times reports.
The partnership follows an April 1 ruling by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Army-imposed restroom restrictions on a transgender civilian worker violated the sex discrimination provisions of the Civil Rights Act.
According to
BuzzFeed News, the case involved Tamara Lusardi, a civilian employee at the Army's Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Investigators found that Lusardi was forced to use a single-user restroom and not the women's restroom after transitioning in 2010, and that a supervisor repeatedly, and in front of other employees, referred to Lusardi by her former male name and with male pronouns, BuzzFeed reports.
The issue of a transgender worker's name change also will be studied by OSHA and the advocacy group, the IBTimes reports.
Advocacy group official Harper Jean Tobin said the partnership recognizes "having equal access to restrooms in the workplace is not only a civil rights issue, but a health and safety issue."
"This is not something that's complicated," Tobin told IBTimes. "It's really just a matter of not allowing fears and assumptions to lead to undue restrictions on workers."
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