Several months after the Department of Education and the Department of Justice issued a directive saying that public schools must allow students to use the bathroom according to their gender identity, another federal agency has followed suit, extending that directive to federal buildings.
The General Services Administration issued the notice on Thursday, saying, "Federal agencies occupying space under the jurisdiction, custody, or control of GSA must allow individuals to use restroom facilities and related areas consistent with their gender identity."
The notice also prohibits the federal buildings from requiring transgender individuals to use single-user restrooms, or only allowing transgender individuals who have undergone medical procedures to use restrooms according to gender identity.
This new directive from the GSA will apply to some 9,200 federal facilities such as the Social Security Adminsitration offices and courthouses in more than 2,000 cities across the country.
The initial directive issued by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice in May said that bathroom access according to gender identity is required because the two agencies interpret the word "sex" in the non-discrimination clause of the education code to mean "gender identity."
Similarly, a GSA official told NBC News that the GSA's notice was issued "to clarify that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is prohibited as sex discrimination."
More than 20 states have sued the Department of Education and the Department of Justice since May, arguing that the agencies ignored the legislative process in issuing the directive and that the action was an overreach of power.
