The EEOC on January 29th issued a statement that called for the reversal of former President Biden’s gender approach to EEOC complaints and investigations. Specifically, Executive Order 14166, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” directed federal agencies to enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes, and to remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages promoting gender ideology.
According to the news release by the EEOC, Acting Chair Lucas has taken the following actions pursuant to Executive Order 14166:
- Announced that one of her priorities – for compliance, investigations, and litigation – is to defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work.
- Removed the agency’s “pronoun app,” a feature in employees’ Microsoft 365 profiles, which allowed an employee to opt to identify pronouns, content which then appeared alongside the employee’s display name across all Microsoft 365 platforms, including Outlook and Teams. 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.
- Commenced review of the content of EEOC’s “Know Your Rights” poster, which all covered employers are required by law to post in their workplaces.
- Removed materials promoting gender ideology on the Commission’s internal and external websites and documents, including webpages, statements, social media platforms, forms, trainings, and others. The agency’s review and removal of such materials remains ongoing. Where a publicly accessible item cannot be immediately removed or revised, a banner has been added to explain why the item has not yet been brought into compliance
Although Acting Chair Lucas currently cannot rescind portions of the agency’s harassment guidance that are inconsistent with Executive Order 14166, Acting Chair Lucas remains opposed to those portions of the guidance. “Biology is not bigotry. Biological sex is real, and it matters,” Lucas said. “Sex is binary (male and female) and immutable. It is not harassment to acknowledge these truths—or to use language like pronouns that flow from these realities, even repeatedly.”
Given these actions and beliefs, EEOC will be retrenching and refocusing in this area by bringing “common sense” to people relations and identity. “The Commission’s harassment guidance was fundamentally flawed,” said Lucas. “It ignored biological reality, effectively eliminated single-sex workplace facilities, and impinged on all employees’ rights to freedom of speech and belief. In unlawfully expanding past Bostock’s dictates, the EEOC exceeded its authority. The EEOC must rescind the guidance and protect the sex-based privacy and safety needs of women.”
In addition, on January 31, 2025, the EEOC advised that at the present time all charges alleging discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity will be sent to national headquarters for review to ensure that they "comply with applicable executive orders to the fullest extent possible." The agency also indicated that with respect to such charges it will issue a notice of right to sue if asked to by a charging party "as statutorily required."
Source: EEOC 1/29/25, Littler 2/5/25