[nomel]

Maybe I have poor reading comprehension, and my google-fu is bad, but I can't find anything that says specifically why this is necessary, or what it hopes to achieve. I found a single "increase transparency". Why is a transparency to protected classes a good thing? I thought they were protected because they're supposed to, fundamentally, not matter/influence decisions.

[nradov]

It's not necessary. As with much of politics it's purely performative, intended to drive votes by a certain segment of the party base.