Wisconsin company to revise religious accommodations after LGBT pronoun dispute, government says

Generac Power Systems, a generator manufacturer based in Wisconsin, will update its religious accommodation policies and pay a monetary settlement to a former employee following a dispute over transgender pronouns. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the resolution on Sept. 30.

The commission stated that Generac violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to engage in the required interactive process for reasonable accommodations. According to the commission, the company denied a request from an employee who wished to use biologically accurate pronouns to refer to a colleague, despite the worker informing the company that using non-biological pronouns conflicted with his sincerely held religious beliefs.

The former employee has since resigned from the company. As part of the settlement, Generac will revise its workplace rules and provide training to improve how the company handles religious accommodation requests.