Two weeks after President-elect Donald Trump’s November election victory, the Biden-Harris State Department issued an internal diplomatic cable that touted sweeping diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the agency, including dedicated “reflection rooms” and “all-gender restrooms” at American embassies abroad.
The Nov. 19 cable, issued by outgoing secretary of state Antony Blinken and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, is part of a larger Biden administration bid to embed DEI initiatives within the federal government before Trump takes office next year.
In some cases, that’s meant rebranding job titles “promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” in an attempt to make them less noticeable to Trump, the Washington Post reported. The State Department’s cable, however, is open in its embrace of DEI.
Titled, “Developing a More Inclusive and Accessible Work Environment,” the internal message “outlines efforts the Department is taking, in both domestic and overseas locations, to create workplaces that are welcoming, inclusive, and accessible to all employees and visitors.” It references Blinken’s so-called Modernization Agenda, which it says “calls for a work environment that is resilient, agile, secure, and inclusive.”
The State Department circulated the cable, which includes Blinken’s signature, among “all diplomatic and consular posts.”
It touts ongoing efforts to “establish dedicated reflection rooms” in “domestic and overseas facilities” for “employees who want a quiet space or place to meditate during the day.” The cable goes on to reference a “Reflection Room Repository,” which tells employees how they can locate the rooms at various “overseas Posts and domestic facilities.”
“It includes details such as building name, room number, and instructions on location,” the cable says of the repository. “All overseas Posts and domestic facilities are encouraged to submit information about their reflection space using the Reflection Room Location Guide Update form.”
The cable also focuses on employee bathroom habits.
The State Department is “identifying more inclusive options for employees and visitors who would like more privacy,” according to the message, which notes that “employees and family members and guests visiting Posts abroad can access men’s or women’s restrooms and single-use (all-gender) restrooms (as available) and other facilities that align with their gender identity.”
“Most” of the agency’s office buildings, the cable says, “include single-occupant restrooms.” Such restrooms “may also benefit people of diverse faiths by providing a private place for ritual washing and a safe environment for a wide range of employees and visitors, including transgender and non-binary individuals.”
Facility managers are then encouraged to “identify opportunities to repurpose existing single-occupant restrooms, to include a baby changing station and bidet toilet seat, and ensure there is inclusive restroom signage, as well as directories identifying where single occupant restrooms are on the embassy or consulate compound.” If a State Department facility has no such restrooms, the facility manager “may consider converting” a traditional “gendered multi-occupant restroom” to an “all-gender multi-occupant restroom.”
“This process would require new signage, as well as directories identifying where this restroom is on the embassy or consulate compound, and may include bidet toilet seats and modifications to stall partitions to increase privacy,” the cable states. Facility managers are advised to “carefully consider host country customs and norms regarding privacy and mixing of genders.”
Under President Joe Biden, the State Department has championed DEI initiatives overseas, pumping around $80 million into programs meant to advance “racial equity” and prevent “gender and sexuality discrimination.” The agency has also held “internal staff sessions and meetings” on how to preserve DEI policies once Trump takes office, according to Simon Hankinson, a former Foreign Service officer who now serves as a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
“Some staff are concerned with how to preserve DEI, and there are suggestions that they could keep the essence of it by renaming and keeping the same dedicated staff with new titles,” Hankinson said. “Some employees are not willing to let what they see as ‘progress’ go, even if the order comes down.”
Some employee organizations within the State Department have pushed those policies.
American Muslim Friends at State (AMFAS), for example, successfully petitioned the department earlier this year “to establish bathrooms with ablution capability and a large, designated Quiet Reflection Room” at its central hub in Washington, D.C., according to State Magazine, the agency’s internal publication. “AMFAS is leading the efforts in creating a repository of reflection/prayer spaces in all Department annexes and missions abroad.”
The State Department’s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations has additionally introduced a 2025 “design standard” for new embassies and consulates that will require “one single-occupant universal restroom per floor, with bidet toilet seat and signage, in addition to gendered multi-occupant restrooms.”
For a large portion of the State Department’s working force, DEI initiatives are seen “as gospel,” Hankinson said.
“Those that really believe in DEI as gospel don’t intend to go backwards,” he told the Free Beacon. “The Biden political appointees and a percentage of career staff see Trump’s intention to roll back some of the crazier fringes of the DEI movement as a threat to ‘progress’ and will do what they can to impede it.”
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
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