Fox News host Harris Faulkner suggested Wednesday that otherwise conservative companies may have to change some of their policies in order to comply with woke state laws.
Her remarks follow The Daily Signal’s late May report on Fox News’ gender transition policies. The company handbook states that Fox News employees are allowed to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, are permitted to dress in alignment with their preferred gender, and must addressed by their preferred name and pronouns in the workplace. Fox also offers to help employees come up with a “Workplace Transition Plan” to ease their gender transition at work.
Fox News has not responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment on this story. On Wednesday, Faulkner touched on the topic during remarks made on “Outnumbered” where she discussed criticism of Chick-fil-A’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies with host Kayleigh McEnany.
“What will be interesting about Chick-fil-A is, can they do both? Can they keep the DEI in the front of the car?” questioned Faulkner. “Because many states are mandating it now. Here at Fox, other corporations, there will be things they’re going to have to change because the state of NY requires it.”
“If their states start mandating it,” she added later on, “some of these companies are going to have to start doing things that they said they’d never do.”
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Fox’s policies appear to be aligned with the legal requirements in New York City, where the company is headquartered, as well as California, where a large number of its employees work.
The New York City Human Rights Law requires employers to use the name, pronouns, and title with which a person identifies, regardless of their biological sex. It is a violation of the Human Rights Law to intentionally or repeatedly refuse to use a person’s preferred name, pronouns, or title.
Additionally, the New York City law requires that people “be permitted to use single gender facilities, such as restrooms or locker rooms … that most closely align with their gender, regardless of their gender expression, sex assigned at birth, anatomy, medical history, or the sex or gender indicated on their identification.”
If a biological woman objects to sharing a bathroom with a trans-identifying man, her objection will not be considered a “lawful reason to deny access” to the trans-identifying individual: “In those circumstances, a covered entity may offer alternatives for the individual expressing discomfort, by, for example, providing a single-occupancy restroom to change in.”
The law also specifically states that it is “unlawful” to require a trans-identifying person to use a single-occupancy restroom “because they are transgender, non-binary, or gender non-conforming.” New York also outlines the “Workplace Transition Plan” mentioned in the Fox handbook.
California’s Fair Employment and Housing Council adopted new regulations in 2017 pertaining to trans-identifying employees. These regulations similarly include an employee’s bathroom use, transitioning, dress, and preferred name and pronouns.
For example, on bathroom use, the regulations state: “Employers shall permit employees to use facilities that correspond to the employee’s gender identity or gender expression, regardless of the employee’s assigned sex at birth.”
And on names and pronouns, the regulations give individuals a means to take action against their employer: “If an employee requests to be identified with a preferred gender, name, and/or pronoun, including gender-neutral pronouns, an employer or other covered entity who fails to abide by the employee’s stated preference may be liable.”
The Fox handbook also cites the Human Rights Campaign, one of the most prominent LGBTQ+ organizations in the country, to define a slew of LGBTQ+ terms, including cisgender, gender expression, gender-fluid, gender identity, gender nonconforming, gender transition, LGBTQ, nonbinary, and transgender.
For the past several years, Fox received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, “the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality.”
That Corporate Equality Index is thought to be behind Bud Light’s financially disastrous decision to use a biological male who “identifies” as a transgender woman, Dylan Mulvaney, as its public face.
The Daily Signal also covered the Human Rights Campaign’s Healthcare Equality Index last week, an index swaying the practices of hospitals and health care facilities by scoring them on whether they are adopting progressive policies.
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