The Department of Labor has finally issued guidance to protect transgender employees of federal contractors from discrimination

The Department of Labor has finally issued guidance to protect transgender employees of federal contractors from discrimination, reports Buzzfeed.

The move comes after an April 2012 decision by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) supporting a claim for discrimination against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives filed by transgender woman Mia Macy.

The EEOC ruled in favor of Macy’s claim under the sex discrimination ban in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act because anti-transgender discrimination is a type of sex discrimination.

When Labor Secretary Tom Perez addressed the issue in February, he said that the issue was under review. However, it wasn’t until President Obama announced in June that he would be signing an executive order banning discrimination against LGBT employees of federally-funded organizations that Perez announced the Labor Department would be applying the Macy decision to the existing executive order.

The guidance was issued yesterday “[t]o clarify that existing agency guidance on discrimination on the basis of sex under Executive Order 11246, as amended, includes discrimination on the bases of gender identity and transgender status.”

Welcoming the decision, Sarah Warbelow, The Human Rights Campaign’s legal director, said:

“The Labor Department guidance issued today is a giant step toward ensuring American workers are judged based on the work they do, and never because of a fundamental aspect of who they are — like their gender identity.”

Watch a Center for American Progress profile of Mia Macy, AFTER THE JUMP…