The Minnesota Supreme Court addressed this question in Goins v. West Group, 635 N.W.2d 717 (Minn. 2001). Here are the key points from the case that employers in Minnesota should know:
- Transgender individuals—which the Court defined as people who “seek to live as a gender other than the biological gender attributed to them at birth but without surgery”—are protected from discrimination under the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA).
- The MHRA neither requires nor prohibits restroom designation according to self-image of gender or according to biological gender.
- It is not unlawful discrimination under the MHRA for employers to require a transgender employee to use a restroom consistent with the employee’s biological gender, as opposed to his or her self-image gender.