EEOC Acting Chair Calls for Revoking Gender Identity Guidance

The EEOC’s acting chair is calling for the rescission of agency guidance on workplace gender identity protections while removing nonbinary gender markers from bias charge intake and nixing an app that allowed commission employees to specify their pronouns.

The changes will align the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with a Jan. 20 executive order from President Donald Trump that declared the federal government should only recognize two sexes, according to the Tuesday statement from Andrea Lucas, the Republican who currently heads the commission.

The late night notice from the EEOC came after former Commissioners Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels said Trump had fired them, leaving only Lucas and Democrat Kalpana Kotagal on the five-member panel.

Lucas’s statement acknowledged that removing or modifying the EEOC’s anti-harassment guidance that protects gender identity at work would require a commission vote and can’t be done unilaterally. The guidance approved by the EEOC’s previous Democratic majority said employers may violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act if they misgender workers or prevent them from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

Lucas reiterated her argument that the EEOC’s guidance unlawfully goes beyond the US Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Trump’s unprecedented action to fire the Democrats—who would have held a panel majority though 2026 due to the members’ staggered terms—clears the way for Lucas and new Trump-appointed commissioners to get rid of the guidance and other protections around gender identity.

Lucas’s additional actions included getting rid of the ‘X’ marker that nonbinary workers were permitted to use since 2022 when self-identifying as part of the charge submission process to the EEOC, according to the statement.

Three years ago, commission Democrats hailed the change as a step towards inclusion.

Lucas also removed the gender neutral “Mx” option from EEOC forms and axed a “pronoun app” in the Microsoft 365 applications agency employees use that allow them to share their pronouns with external and internal parties.

“Biology is not bigotry. Biological sex is real, and it matters,” Lucas said in the statement. “Sex is binary (male and female) and immutable.”