Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on
Thursday ordered the reinstatement of LGBT protections in the
agency's employment policy statement.
The Commerce Department's 2017
Secretarial Statement on Equal Employment Opportunity signed by Ross
was emailed to department employees Thursday morning. The policy
excluded sexual orientation and gender identity in its list of
protected classes.
According to BuzzFeed
News, those protections were first introduced in 2010.
Mara Keisling, executive director of
the National Center for Transgender Equality, said that not including
those classes “makes LGBT people in the Commerce Department feel
unwelcome.”
David Stacy, government affairs
director for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest
LGBT rights advocate, called the move “a slap in the face to LGBTQ
federal employees who proudly serve at the Department of Commerce and
sadly signals that this administration does not value them.”
In a statement Thursday afternoon, the
Commerce Department said that Secretary Ross “has directed the
department to reissue the policy statement to address any concerns
and prevent misinterpretation.”