LGBTQ Agenda: EEOC sued after dropping trans discrimination cases

Civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying its compliance with one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders violates the rights of transgender workers who say they’ve been discriminated against.

The suit was brought by FreeState Justice, the National Women’s Law Center, and Democracy Forward in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland against both the EEOC and its acting head, Andrea Lucas. On July 31, the U.S. Senate confirmed Lucas to a second five-year term at the agency on a party-line vote of 52-45. The New York Times reported that she is still awaiting an appointment by Trump from her position of acting chair to chair of the agency.

“For over 60 years, the EEOC’s mandate has been to protect workers from discrimination, not to pick and choose who is deemed worthy of protection based on political interference,” stated Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward. “The Trump-Vance administration’s unlawful effort to erase protections for transgender people is cruel, and a violation of the law and the Constitution. We are honored to be alongside our partners and clients to hold this administration accountable and ensure every worker is protected under the law.”

The EEOC, established in the 1960s, is tasked with addressing unlawful workplace discrimination. 

“Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, people who have been subjected to unlawful workplace discrimination, or their advocates, may file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC – indeed, doing so is a precondition to filing a federal employment-discrimination lawsuit,” the civil complaint states.

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that the section of Title VII that states people cannot be discriminated against on account of sex applies to people who are discriminated against both due to sexual orientation and gender identity. Before that, discrimination on those bases was not recognized as being against federal law.

“But the EEOC has now abdicated this core duty,” the complaint states. “In derogation of its statutory and constitutional obligations, the EEOC has foreclosed transgender workers from the full set of Title VII-mandated charge-investigation and other enforcement protections that all other charging parties enjoy.”

The EEOC’s Lucas told a congressional hearing June 18 that while the Bostock decision, “did clearly hold that discriminating against someone on the basis of sex included firing an individual who is transgender or based on their sexual orientation,” it became “impossible to both comply with the president's executive order as an executive branch agency, and also zealously defend the workers we had brought the case on behalf.”

On January 20, Trump issued Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

The order states that “the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” and that these are defined from conception. The order tasks executive branch agencies to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes.”

Eight days after Trump’s executive order, Lucas announced that the EEOC “is returning to its mission of protecting women from sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination in the workplace by rolling back the Biden administration’s gender identity agenda.”

Therefore, according to the civil complaint, the EEOC “halted the charge-investigation process for all charges tied to sexual orientation or gender identity … moved to dismiss with prejudice its own employment discrimination lawsuits brought on behalf of transgender charging parties … [and] directed that all charges of gender-identity discrimination be categorically classified as meritless and suitable for dismissal.”

If a case is dismissed with prejudice, it can’t be brought again.

Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center, stated that, “Instead of serving its critical role to prevent discrimination in the workplace, the EEOC, under Andrea Lucas’ leadership, is actually promoting discrimination.

“Transgender workers deserve to be protected against harassment, and the EEOC is obligated to do so under law,” Burroughs continued. “But the Trump administration seems hell-bent on bullying transgender people in every possible way and ensuring that they are pushed out of all forms of public life, including their workplaces, so we’re taking the administration to court.”

Lauren Pruitt, the legal director at FreeState Justice, stated that, “We are fighting back because no one should have to live in fear of discrimination or retribution just to go to work.”

“Policies like the EEOC’s undermine the law and endanger people. They force LGBTQI+ people and other marginalized communities to choose between their job and being true to who they are,” Pruitt continued. “These harms show up in the daily lives of the communities we serve through our legal work, who are being pushed further into the margins. We are fighting back because no one should have to live in fear of discrimination or retribution just to go to work.”

The EEOC referred the Bay Area Reporter’s request for comment to the U.S. Department of Justice, which did not return comment by press time. 

LGBTQ Agenda is an online column that appears weekly. Got a tip on queer news? Contact John Ferrannini at [email protected] .

The LGBTQ Agenda column is taking a short break and will return August 19.