Alaska Airlines launches gender-neutral uniform policy for flight attendants and other staff

“Now we have up to date our uniform pointers, efficient as we speak, to supply extra freedom and suppleness in particular person and gender expression,” the airline stated in a press release on Monday.

The airline stated it’s going to additionally collaborate with Seattle designer Luly Yang to develop gender-neutral uniform gadgets for frontline workers, corresponding to flight attendants, customer support brokers and uniformed lounge workers.

The announcement comes after a 2021 allegation by an Alaska Airways worker that the airline’s uniform coverage discriminated in opposition to workers whose gender expression doesn’t match the female and male gown codes, significantly nonbinary workers — these whose gender identification falls outdoors the binary of “male” or “feminine.”

The earlier coverage required flight attendants to put on both “male” or “feminine” uniforms. The airline additionally regulated different facets of gown, like coiffure, make-up and jewellery, based mostly on employees’ assumed gender.

The American Civil Liberties Union acknowledged in a letter on the time that Alaska’s uniform coverage violated Washington’s Regulation Towards Discrimination, which prohibits discrimination based mostly on “intercourse” or “gender identification, self-image, look, habits, or expression.”

“I do not need to be pressured right into a binary uniform that excludes me and results in me being misgendered at work,” Justin Wetherell, an Alaska Airways flight attendant and flight attendant teacher based mostly in Seattle, stated in an ACLU assertion on the time.

The airline responded on the time saying flight attendants since 2020 had the liberty to order “any pant or parka model and have been in a position to choose the uniform equipment of their selection, no matter gender identification.”

The newest replace to the uniform coverage will enable for extra flexibility in private expression for flight attendants of all genders, Alaska Airline stated. All flight attendants will probably be permitted to put on fingernail polish, make-up, two earrings per ear and a nostril piercing.

“We have additionally up to date our grooming insurance policies to permit tattoos in additional places, extra hair model choices and are adjusting the names of our uniform kits to be centered on match vs. gender identifications,” the airline stated.

The corporate has additionally created private pronoun pins that workers can select to put on with their uniforms.

“All of us need to look skilled, and all of us need to be ourselves on the identical time,” Monique “Mo,” a flight attendant based mostly in San Diego, California, stated within the Alaska Airways press assertion. “Your gender should not outline what you put on or the way you look.”