EEOC scraps job discrimination guidance after commissioner complained about trans rightshttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/01/eeoc-scraps-job-discrimination-guidance-after-commissioner-complained-about-trans-rights/ 🔗John Russell (23 Jan 2026)
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted this week to rescind the most recent version of its workplace harassment guidance, which included examples based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
As NPR reports, the commission voted 2-to-1 on Thursday to rescind the guidance, with EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas and commissioner Brittany Panuccio, both Trump appointees, voting against Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the commission's only Democrat.
The guidance, approved in 2024 under the Biden administration, cited the Supreme Court's 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation is a form of sex-based discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It included examples of unlawful workplace discrimination involving intentional misuse of pronouns that do not align with an employee's gender identity and denial of access to restrooms that align with an employee's gender identity.
President Donald Trump named Lucas the EEOC's acting chair last January, after firing two Democratic commissioners and the agency's general counsel. Lucas opposes both DEI initiatives and federal civil rights protections for transgender people and has said that her priorities include "rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination."
