My significant other is non-binary and works in a jail as a jailer and only houses male inmates. When they started working there they identified as male. They in 2023 identified as non-binary and have since. At first they went to HR and HR said they can still just like all staff (male or female) do pat searches of male inmates but they cannot any longer do strip searches or work certain areas of the jail (there is a post called the shower room post that literally stands at the entrance of the showers and has to make sure nobody gets assaulted while showering).

Suddenly there is a supervisor who says they must start to do strip searches of inmates and can work the shower room post. They explained they cannot legally do this. The supervisor says they can because they are not the opposite gender of the male inmates, they are instead identifying as another gender. My significant other disagrees and says you must be male to do male inmate strip searches. The HR manager is out for the next month on leave and my significant other does not want to get fired for insubordination but also does not want to get fired for breaking the federal prison rape elimination act.

For context there is a jailer who was assigned female at birth, has not had any corrective surgery to alter their physical body, but identifies as a man now and they are always allowed to do strip searches and work the shower room.

Legally speaking how you identify and what you were assigned at birth are 2 different things. Courts would absolutely in my opinion agree with this and my significant other works hard at work. They constantly are taking overtime and there are approx. 40 posts. They just cannot work the 1 post for the shower room and they can do the other 99% of the job just not the strip searches.

LEGALLY speaking is my interpretation correct? I believe this would fall under sex discrimination since the SCOTUS ruled that "sex" via the 1964 Civil Rights Act does include gender identity (Bostock v. Clayton County). As I read through PREA stuff I am not so sure who is right. Was HR right to tell my significant other to halt doing all strip searches or would that have only been correct if they started identifying as female (aka the "opposite gender" of the inmates)? Or is the supervisor correct?