OSHA Lets Us Do Our Business

I am an optimist.  I have always known that sooner or later, we wouldn't have to worry about where or whether we could go to the bathroom while we were on our jobs.

What I could not have foreseen, however, is how that would happen. 

Yesterday, the US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued guidelines for employers. A Guide To Restroom Access for Transgender Workers acknowledges that some employers have already implemented policies to ensure that all employees, including transgender ones, have "prompt access to appropriate sanitary facilities".  What such policies, and all new policies, should have in common is "a core belief" that "all employees should be permitted to use the facilities that correspond with their gender identity." 

In addition to allowing those who identify as women to use women's restrooms and those who identify as men to use men's facilities, employers have other options, according to the OSHA guidelines. They include single-occupancy gender-neutral (unisex) facilities or multi-occupancy, gender-neutral bathrooms with lockable singe-occupant stalls.

Now all we need is equal access to those workplaces!