Picture this: you're a server at a packed restaurant, required by policy to wear a form-fitting polyester uniform. When a hot flash strikes mid-shift, you're left drenched in sweat — and wishing your employer would simply let you swap in a breathable cotton shirt.
If you work in Philadelphia, that kind of relief may soon be a legal right.
Starting January 1, 2027, Philadelphia will ban workplace discrimination on the basis of menstruation, perimenopause, and menopause, and will require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees experiencing symptoms related to those conditions.
Perimenopause refers to the transitional phase leading up to menopause, characterized by fluctuating levels of estrogen and progesterone. Menopause itself marks the end of the reproductive years, clinically defined as 12 consecutive months without a menstrual period.
Both stages are commanding unprecedented public attention.
Social media has become a sprawling marketplace for influencers and life coaches hawking supplements promising to tame night sweats, lift brain fog, and restore libido. Many promote strength training, walking with weighted vests, hormone replacement therapy, and creatine, a compound used to support muscle mass.
As a law professor at Villanova University, I teach and write about employment law and gender discrimination, with a focus on practical solutions for women and girls navigating the workplace.
I've also recently taken up strength training, protein shakes, and needlepoint — a fairly clear signal that I'm embracing life as a woman over 50.
In my view, the Philadelphia ordinance offers a compelling blueprint for other cities and states looking to protect workers from symptoms tied to hormonal changes, while remaining mindful of the practical realities employers face.
Following Rhode Island's lead
Women's health advocates have long drawn attention to gaps in medical training on issues affecting girls and women across menstruation, perimenopause, and menopause.
A 2022 national survey of 145 OB-GYN residency program directors found that fewer than one in three programs included menopause in their curriculum — a striking omission given that every woman who lives long enough will experience it.
While incremental progress has been made in medicine, workplace protections have lagged even further behind.
In July 2025, Rhode Island became the first state to prohibit discrimination on the basis of menopause and mandate that employers provide reasonable accommodations for menopause-related symptoms.
Philadelphia's City Council effectively responded: hold my weighted vest.
In December 2025, the council amended the Philadelphia Code to ban discrimination on the basis of menstruation, perimenopause, and menopause. Under the new law, an employer who fires a worker because heavy menstrual bleeding caused leaking on the job, for instance, would be in violation.
The council also amended Section 9-1128 — which already requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions — to explicitly include "symptoms of menstruation, perimenopause or menopause," provided the employee requests the accommodation and it does not impose an undue hardship on the employer.
Medical and public health experts have documented the wide range of physical and emotional symptoms women and girls may experience during these life stages: abdominal or pelvic cramping, fatigue, mood changes, headaches, irregular cycles, hot flashes, sleep disruption, and cognitive shifts.
One expert noted that 23% of women in perimenopause experience symptoms severe enough to significantly interfere with daily functioning.
Employers will not be required to accommodate every symptom — only those that "substantially interfere with an employee's ability to perform one or more job functions." While the ordinance does not define "substantially interfere," the intent is clear: accommodations are required when a worker cannot perform some part of her job, such as when period pain prevents a retail employee from standing through a shift, or when hot flashes make it impossible for a kitchen worker to remain at their station.
Clear and explicit protections
Given existing antidiscrimination laws, why is targeted legislation necessary?
Federal, state, and local laws already prohibit sex discrimination by Philadelphia employers, and employers with 15 or more employees are already required to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions. Similarly, federal, state, and local disability laws prohibit discrimination and require accommodations for qualified employees with disabilities.
The problem is that menopause and menstruation protections do not clearly fall within these existing frameworks.
Some employees have successfully challenged dismissals tied to menstruation-related conditions. But others have lost similar cases when courts found that menstruation is not covered by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act or the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
Workers seeking protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act for conditions like endometriosis — where tissue grows outside the uterus and frequently causes severe menstrual pain — face an especially difficult legal path. Philadelphia's new ordinance removes that uncertainty by making protection explicit, rather than forcing workers to shoehorn their situations into statutes designed for other purposes.
Reasonable accommodations
During legislative hearings on the bill, Council Member Nina Ahmad, who introduced the measure, emphasized that the accommodations envisioned are low-cost and practical: access to bathrooms and drinking water, brief flexible breaks, breathable uniforms, temperature adjustments and fans for hot flash management, the ability to layer clothing, access to period products, and modest scheduling flexibility.
The accommodations needed will vary significantly by industry. Many white-collar workers already control what they wear, when they take a bathroom break, and whether they work remotely — advantages that make symptom management far more manageable. For retail, food service, and other workers operating under rigid shift structures, simply being allowed to step away for water or a bathroom break could meaningfully reduce suffering.
Just as accommodations will differ by role, so will the employer's ability to claim undue hardship. Under the Philadelphia Code, undue hardship is an individualized assessment weighing the cost of the accommodation against factors such as workforce size and the employer's financial resources.
The details will matter, and enforcement will test the ordinance's reach. But come January 2027, millions of workers in Philadelphia will have a clearer legal foundation for simply doing their jobs — even when their bodies are making that harder than it should be.
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Ann Juliano does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.