A union representing employees of the Social Security Administration has demanded that the Biden administration kill a new “pronoun policy” geared toward transgender workers, saying it forces political views on members.
American Federation of Government Employees Local 2505 filed a Union-Management Grievance Friday over a policy announced internally on Wednesday called the “Policy on Prohibiting Discrimination, Including Harassment, Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, or Gender Expression,” which the agency calls the Pronoun Policy for short. The union, which represents 600 low-level employees in Oklahoma and Arkansas, said the policy changed restroom access, the dress code, and “created a new form with the employee’s name, gender identity, pronouns.”
“All of the changes are violations of Article 1, Section 2 as they changed existing terms and conditions of employment,” the grievance said. “Having made these changes without advanced notice and the opportunity to bargain, in addition to SSA violating 5 USC 71, SSA also violated Article 1, Section 2.”
The grievance went on to say the policy violates employees’ freedom of religion and free speech rights by forcing workers to address people by their preferred pronouns and creates a hostile work environment for employees who do not agree for political or religious reasons.
“This new policy will create a chilling effect on them and is essentially forcing them to agree with this political view in spite of their own personal political or religious beliefs,” it added.
On March 1, SSA Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi announced the policy to employees with the subject “Building an Equitable and Inclusive Culture: Gender Identity.”
“Soon, you will receive notice of a mandatory training to help you prepare for full implementation of the policy, which will happen on March 31, 2023. Available starting March 2, this training will increase your knowledge of using pronouns and gender-neutral language and supporting employees and colleagues in the workplace,” the email said.
The 27-page policy, obtained by The Daily Wire, defines the terms agender, bigender, cisgender, gender diverse, genderfluid, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming, nonbinary, and two-spirit, and lays out numerous ways in which the agency will support employees who wish to transition to one of those categories.