Last year, I visited Vancouver and got to go to Granville Island Public Market — one of the great markets in North America.
Sure, I could talk about the wonderful food I got there, but there was something else that felt very unique and downright modern — their restroom.
The bathroom had a sign — "All User Washroom – Everyone Welcome". It noted that there were private stalls with private or shared sinks too.
And sure enough, when you walked in, it had exactly what was promised. There were people and kids using it side by side. The private stalls went down to the ground level and that was it.
It's been almost a decade since I talked restroom access in the workplace on the blog because Connecticut now protects against gender identity and expression. Employers and people in Connecticut have adapted and moved on.
Schools have even followed guidance from the state Department of Education on restroom access.
And yet, this past year, we've still seen transgender rights raised during the election and worse, afterwards, one Representative in the House introduced a resolution that would ban transgender women on the House side of the Capitol from using restrooms that do not comport with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Putting aside the politics of it all, employers in Connecticut would be wise to ignore the rhetoric coming out of the capital on the issue.
Employers in Connecticut cannot discriminate on the basis of gender identity or expression. Requiring employees to use a restroom that comports with the sex they were assigned at birth is just asking for a claim.
(At the federal level, EEOC guidance on this topic was vacated by a 2022 District Court of Texas decision but it still provides helpful reasoning to employers in Connecticut where gender identity is explicitly protected by state law.)
Of course, there are various solutions to the "issue" including making single occupant restrooms available for all. But as the CBIA noted in a post a few years ago, employers would be wise to let the employee—not the employer—determine the most appropriate and safest option for himself or herself.
And a little bit of understanding never hurt either.
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