Really? Out of all the things out there this is what they’re going to focus on?

Via The Hill:

The Senate will hold a procedural vote Monday on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a gay and bisexual rights bill that also aims to protect people from workplace discrimination when transitioning from one gender to another.

The bill from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) would make it illegal for companies, associations and government employers at all levels to use sexual orientation and gender identity as a basis for hiring and firing decisions, or to use these factors to discriminate against employees or applicants.

But the bill goes further than that by including language meant to protect people from discrimination when in “gender transition.” The bill gets at the idea of gender transition in Section 8, which deals with workplace dress and grooming standards.

That section says employers are allowed to enforce “reasonable dress or grooming standards.” But that right is conditional — employees who have gone through gender transition, and employees who notify employers that they are “undergoing gender transition,” must be allowed to dress in the manner of the gender “to which the employee has transitioned or is transitioning.”

The bill itself, S. 815, does not define “gender transition.” A report on the bill from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee says senators decided not to define the term.

The report does allow that gender transition is the process of a person “publicly changing his or her gender presentation to be consistent with his or her gender identity.” It says that process usually involves name changes and changes to appearance, voice and mannerisms, and could also involve medical procedures.

But the report adds that every gender transition is unique, and that states with relevant laws also don’t try to define it. “Therefore, it is the committee’s intent that nothing in this Act be read as establishing what an individual’s gender transition must entail,” the report says.