ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell's commitment to diversity and inclusiveness includes areas protected by federal and state law, such as race, religion, sex, disability, veteran status and age, as well as areas protected under local law, such as sexual orientation and ex-offender status. Cornell's commitment also extends to other aspects of difference.

This month, the Cornell University Board of Trustees added gender identity and expression to its Equal Employment and Education Opportunity policy.

This coincides with the addition of these protected areas of discrimination to Tompkins County law. These terms refer to an individual's deeply held psychological identification as male, female, both or neither (gender identity) and the external characteristics and behaviors that are socially defined as either feminine or masculine, such as style of dress or physical characteristics (gender expression). Included are transsexuals in all stages of transition, including preoperative, postoperative and persons living in a gender other than their birth sex; persons (including cross-dressers) whose gender expression occasionally differs from their birth sex; and intersexed persons born with anatomy or physiology that includes medical characteristics of both male and female whose sex was assigned at birth and who sometimes manifest physical characteristics, expressions or identity that differ from the sex assigned.

Tompkins County law prohibits discrimination in housing, employment, education and public accommodations based on an individual's gender identity and expression. In the employment setting, this law provides that it is unlawful to:

• refuse to hire or employ, or to bar or to discharge from employment, or to discriminate against an individual in compensation or in terms, conditions or privileges of employment because of his or her gender identity and expression;
• to print or circulate or cause to be printed or circulated any statement, advertisement or publication, or to use any form of application for employment or to make any inquiry in connection with prospective employment, which expresses, directly or indirectly, any limitation, specification or discrimination as to gender identity and expression or sexual orientation, or any intent to make any such limitation, specification or discrimination, unless based on a bona fide occupational qualification; or
• to deny to or withhold from any person because of gender identity and expression or sexual orientation the right to be admitted to or participate in a guidance program, an apprenticeship training program or other occupational training or training program.

In the educational setting, the law provides that it is unlawful to:

• deny the use of its facilities to any person otherwise qualified by reason of his or her gender identity and expression or sexual orientation; or
• to exclude or limit or otherwise discriminate against any person or persons seeking admission as students to such institution or to any educational program or course operated or provided by such institution because of gender identity and expression or sexual orientation.

The county's amendment to its nondiscrimination act is consistent with the national focus on transgender individuals. Four states (California, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Minnesota), 10 counties, and 57 cities, including Ithaca, have passed laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression. Eight other states (Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Vermont as well as the District of Columbia) have interpreted existing laws to prohibit specific forms of discrimination against transgender people. Twenty-one universities nationwide, including Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and Syracuse University, have nondiscrimination policies that specifically include gender identity and expression.

The addition of gender identity and expression to the university policy will mean reviewing existing policies, procedures, and practices to ensure consistency with the law, the university policy and with Cornell's commitment to diversity. A task force has been meeting for the past three months to look at such issues as facility accommodations, changing the gender on record, tracking gender identity-related bias incidents, and creating new online resources.

The university already has offices in place to address issues related to gender identity and expression. The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center has been in existence since October 2004 with the goal of providing education, programming, consultation and outreach services.

The Office of Workforce Diversity, Equity and Life Quality, which has been coordinating the efforts to look at gender identity and expression as a diversity issue, has been in existence since January 2000 with the goal of providing leadership to the Cornell community in the areas of equal opportunity, affirmative action, diversity and the "balance" between work and personal life.

The Diversity Digest is one of the services provided by the university's Diversity Council. For information about the council, this column, the council's newsletter or about diversity initiatives at Cornell, contact co-chairs Robert L. Harris Jr., vice provost for diversity and faculty development, at 255-5358 or rlh10@cornell.edu , or Lynette Chappell-Williams, director of the Office of Workforce Diversity, Equity and Life Quality, at 255-3976 or lc75@cornell.edu . Contact the LGBT Resource Center at 254-4987, lgbtrc@cornell.edu or http://www.lgbtrc.cornell.edu .