“Our nation’s workforce system should reflect our commitment to diversity and the idea that America works best when we field a full team,” Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said when announcing the changes. “Protecting workers from discrimination based on disability, pregnancy, language proficiency, gender identity, and other factors is the right thing to do. This proposed rule provides welcome clarity on how to achieve that in the workforce system.”

The agency is also proposing to remove male and female pronouns from the regulation to avoid gender norms.

“This [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] also replaces ‘he or she’ with ‘the individual,’ ‘person,’ or other appropriate identifier wherever possible to avoid the gender binary,” the proposed rule stated. “The plain language of the regulations is retained for ease of comprehension and application.”

The rule would also require training centers that receive federal funding to add gender identity to the posters they must display.