The City’s EEO policy was created to provide equal opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment by ensuring that all workplaces in the City are free from illegal discrimination, including harassment, based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender (including “gender identity”–which refers to a person’s actual or perceived sex, and includes self-image, appearance behavior or expression, whether or not different from that traditionally associated with the legal sex assigned to the person at birth), age, disability, alienage or citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation or veteran status. The City’s EEO Policy provides an opportunity for employees and applicants for employment to complain about discrimination and also protects them from retaliation when they make EEO complaints or cooperate in EEO investigations.