John Berry, the director of the federal agency in charge of such workplace issues, the Office of Personnel Management, said in an interview on Tuesday that the administration was not trying to hide its work on the new provisions. Mr. Berry noted that he had mentioned them last week at a news briefing about the president’s same-sex benefits plan, though it came up only briefly in a discussion that mostly focused on the complaints.

“There’s been no attempt to hide anything or be coy,” he said.

Mr. Berry, the administration’s highest-ranking openly gay official, said he had been an early advocate for the new protections for transgender workers.

“I was aware coming into this job that this was a class of people for whom it was not clear that they were protected from discrimination,” he said, “and I thought it was an opportunity to clarify that.”

The guidelines will further interpret a section of the civil service law that broadly bars federal supervisors from taking any action against an employee based on anything other than job performance.

Guidelines for federal supervisors already ban them from taking any job action “against an employee or applicant based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status or political affiliation.”

An executive order signed by President Bill Clinton in 1998 added sexual orientation to that list of categories. Mr. Berry said the new guidelines would add gender identity as well.

Mr. Berry said he had no estimate for just how many federal employees would consider themselves to be transgender. “In our own agency we have transgender individuals,” he said. “I know they are present in the federal work force, and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.”