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On January 28th, 2025, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Acting Chair Andrea Lucas announced an update to the agency’s gender ideology practices. Specifically, the agency is returning to its mission of protecting women from workplace sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination. To accomplish this, the EEOC will roll back the Biden administration’s gender identity legislation. Previously, back in November 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported that it had doubled its efforts in responding to systemic discrimination claims.
Background of the Gender Ideology Directive
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14168 into law. The name of the EO is “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” Basically, the EO directed federal agencies to enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes. Additionally, any correspondence that promoted gender ideology must be removed. For example, these include:
- statements,
- policies,
- regulations,
- forms,
- communications, or
- other internal and external messages.
Current Actions Taken by the EEOC
Subsequently, after the signing of the EO, the EEOC took the following actions:
- Announced that one of the agency’s priorities is to defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights. This includes a woman’s right to single-sex spaces at work.
- Removed the agency’s “pronoun app,” which allowed an employee to opt to identify pronouns. This content was displayed both to internal and external parties with whom EEOC employees communicated.
- Ended the use of the “X” gender marker during the intake process for filing a charge of discrimination.
- Directed the modification of the charge of discrimination and related forms to remove “Mx.” from the list of prefix options.
- Started review of the content of EEOC’s “Know Your Rights” poster. All covered employers are legally required to post this resource in their workplaces. WorkWise Compliance subscribers will receive notification of any updates to this poster.
- Removed materials promoting gender ideology on the EEOC’s internal and external websites and documents. The review and removal of such materials remain ongoing.
Employer Takeaways
In conclusion, even though the statement released by EEOC Acting Chair Lucas indicates her priorities for the agency, law group Littler Mendelson asks employers to keep one thing in mind. Basically, that the U.S. Supreme Court (Court) ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits sex discrimination and sexual harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Until the Court revisits that decision, individuals protected by Title VII can file charges of discrimination relating to LGBT status under federal law. Additionally, over 25 states and the District of Columbia have laws that explicitly prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. These laws remain unchanged, and affected employers must comply with the laws of their state.
To assist employers in training workers on forms of harassment and discrimination that could occur in the workplace, WorkWise Compliance created the Harassment & Discrimination Prevention Training eLearning Module for Employees. In addition to explaining harassment and discrimination, the training module describes preventing such actions and addresses ways to report complaints. For employers in California and New York, the following harassment and discrimination prevention trainings need to be utilized where appropriate:
- California Sexual Harassment Training eLearning Program
- New York State Sexual Harassment Training eLearning Program
