A new survey from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asks employees if they are gay, straight or “something else.”
The EPA launched a pilot program that would allow employees to voluntarily provide information on their sexual orientation and gender identity, reports The Washington Free Beacon.
The Sexual Orientation Gender Identity (SOGI) survey asks multiple questions about employee’s pay, education, marital status etc. before branching off into questions about gender identity.
One of the first questions is “What sex were you assigned at birth?” The survey also inquires “Which of the following best represents yourself?” Some of the options the survey gives are “lesbian or gay,” “straight, that is, not lesbian or gay,” “something else,” and “I don’t know the answer.”
The survey also asks whether employees are comfortable discussing their gender identity at work or even reporting it to the agency.
The EPA launched the pilot program in the fall to collect information about employees’ gender identities. The purpose of the data collection was to make sure that the agency’s gay employees felt included in their work environment. (RELATED: EPA Is Building A Database On Employee ‘Gender Identity)
“Today EPA is taking a crucial step forward and playing a leadership role for the federal government in equal employment opportunity and diversity and inclusion by piloting the collection of voluntary, self-disclosed sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) workforce data,” EPA Chief of Staff Matt Fritz said in an email previously.
Fritz also claimed that collecting that data would be useful in improving workplace performance.
“When collected, safely stored, and analyzed along with other demographic information, SOGI data serve as an important resource for developing workforce engagement strategies and improving organizational performance,” he claimed.
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