Can an employer ask people to identify their sexual orientation or gender identity?
Washington State law does not require businesses to have a diversity policy, nor does it require that employers inquire about sexual orientation or gender identity. If a business has a diversity policy in place, and that policy covers sexual orientation, employees could be asked to identify their sexual orientation and gender identity under limited circumstances, such as to monitor the success of the diversity policy. If the information was gathered through voluntary participation, held confidential, not used to harm the employee in any way, and was treated the same as other demographic information (such as race, age, sex), then the employer could ask employees to self-identify their sexual orientation and gender identity. We do not recommend such self-identification as a best practice. For some other protected classes under the Washington Law Against Discrimination, self-identification may be advisable or even necessary to obtain services, such as for a reasonable accommodation reques
