Employees at Texas agency must wear clothes that reflect their 'biological gender,' new dress code says

A new dress code at the Texas Department of Agriculture has many transgender activists howling now that employees must wear clothing that comports with their "biological gender."

The new policy encourages both male and female employees to embrace "Western business attire" as well as their natural masculinity or femininity. Men are expected to wear button-down shirts that are tucked into their pants. Pants are also acceptable for women, but if they instead decide to wear a dress or skirt, the hem must be "within four inches of the knees." Neither sex is allowed to wear "slippers, crocs, or slides" as footwear.

"You are a professional, look like one," the memo stated twice.

Those employees who do not comply with the prescribed dress code will face consequences ranging from a gentle warning to termination. Defiant staff members who are sent home to change clothing "will not be compensated for any work time missed," the policy noted.

As might be expected, local transgender activists object to this new dress code, claiming that it unfairly targets "transgender and gender nonconforming employees" or, as Jonathan Gooch of Equality Texas has called them, "transgender and gender-expansive people."

"[P]eople should be coming to the agriculture department to work, not to perform for their boss," Gooch claimed. "If transgender people aren't allowed to dress in their own clothes and use their own name and pronouns then they are going to have to perform every day."

The Texas Observer, a leftwing publication, also bewailed the policy's conflation of sex and gender when it states that "[e]mployees are expected to comply with this dress code in a manner consistent with their biological gender." "Sex and gender are distinct," the outlet insisted, explaining later that "sex is biological, but gender isn’t."

Leftist activists also seemed particularly preoccupied with Commissioner Sid Miller, who drafted the policy, and the way he spends his time on the job. "It's certainly a surprise to see the agriculture commissioner weighing in on culture wars when he has much more more important things to be doing," Gooch said.

Brian Klosterboer, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas, expressed similar sentiments. "State agencies should be focused on doing their jobs and not discriminating against their own employees and trying to make political statements through their agency regulations," Klosterboer said. "There is no important governmental interest that this can meet."

Despite those criticisms, Miller, who was first elected to be the state's commissioner of agriculture in 2014, has defended the new dress code policy and the ethos of traditional professionalism which undergirds it. "Common sense dress code policies are still legal in the state of Texas and at the Texas Department of Agriculture," the Republican wrote in an email to the Daily Mail. "TDA's policies are in the best interest of our employees and the constituents we serve."

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