Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, EEOC NEWS—Announcement made by Acting Chair regarding ‘removing gender ideology’, (Jan 29, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

Among other things, the Acting Chair is removing the agency’s “pronoun app,” ending the use of the “X” gender marker during intake, and removing “Mx.” from prefix options.

Yesterday, EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, named as such last week by President Trump, announced that the agency is “rolling back the Biden administration’s gender identity agenda” and, pursuant to Executive Order 14166, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” has taken a series of actions in line with one of her identified priorities, i.e., “to defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work.”

Actions so far. As such, the Acting Chair has:

• Removed the agency’s “pronoun app,” a feature in employees’ Microsoft 365 profiles that allowed employees to their identify pronouns alongside their display name across all Microsoft 365 platforms, including Outlook and Teams, which was displayed to both internal and external parties.

• Ended the use of the “X” gender marker during the intake process for filing a discrimination charge.

• Directed the modification of the charge and related forms to remove “Mx.” from the list of prefix options.

• 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.

Lucas adds that 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. She announced that the EEOC has also commenced review of the content of its “Know Your Rights” poster.

Exceptions. However, the Acting Chair notes that, when issuing certain documents, the Commission acts by majority vote and, as such, she cannot unilaterally remove or modify certain “gender identity” related documents subject to the President’s directives in the Executive Order. Those documents include the Commission’s Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace (issued by a 3-2 vote in 2024); the EEOC Strategic Plan 2022-2026 (issued by a 3-2 vote in 2023); and the EEOC Strategic Enforcement Plan Fiscal Years 2024-2028 (issued by a 3-2 vote in 2023). She notes that she voted against each of those documents and had voiced particular opposition to the harassment guidance. She further notes that although she cannot rescind portions of the agency’s harassment guidance that are inconsistent with Executive Order 14166, she 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.”

“The Commission’s harassment guidance was fundamentally flawed,” Lucas adds. “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.”

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