Access to Sex-Segregated Facilities
In November, 2001, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in a case called Goins v. West Group (635 N.W.2d 717 (Minn. 2001)) that an employer could legally assign restrooms based on an employee's physical anatomy. The court held that this was a distinction based on sex, not on sexual orientation/gender identity. In particular, the court held that the employer could require an employee it believed to be anatomically male to use the men's restroom, regardless of the fact that the employee lived and worked full-time as a woman. However, the court also ruled that the law did not require employers to do this; employers may permit workers to use the restroom that matches their gender presentation, irrespective of anatomy.
While not explicitly addressed in the Goins decision, this analysis would likely apply to similar sex-segregated facilities other than restrooms and locker rooms, such as dressing rooms, jails, shelters, or educational facilities.
Since that time, both the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals have concluded that simply permitting transgender employees to use gender-appropriate restrooms is not sexual harassment. (See Cruzan v. Special Sch. Dist. #1 [Minneapolis, MN], 294 F.3d 981 (8th Cir. 2002)) Also, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights has determined that a post-operative male-to-female transsexual was fully entitled to use a women's restroom. More information about restroom and other transgender-related human-rights issues issues has been published in the Minnesota Department of Human Rights' The Rights Stuff newsletter.
The Goins decision leaves intact the fundamental protections transgender people in Minnesota enjoy from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity or expression. It remains against the law to fire, refuse to hire, evict, deny service to, or in other ways discriminate against a person based on the fact they're transgender. The impact of the Goins decision will be felt in those relatively limited areas where gender has historically been a consideration, such as restrooms and locker rooms.
For more information, contact the OutFront Minnesota Legal Program at legal@outfront.org or at 612.822.0127 x.7663.