EEOC Chair Announces Transgender Bathroom Ban in Private Businesses "A Priority"

The new chair states that her top priority is the targeting of transgender people in the workplace.

On Tuesday, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Acting Chair Andrea Lucas announced a set of policy changes inspired by President Donald Trump’s recent anti-trans executive orders, including the derecognition of nonbinary people, the removal of pronoun options from digital workplace tools, and the elimination of materials promoting what she called “gender ideology.” Most alarming, however, was Lucas’ stated top priority: “defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work,” a signal that she intends to push for a federally backed bathroom ban in private workplaces.

The press release clarifies that Lucas cannot unilaterally rescind prior EEOC guidance from the Biden administration that affirmed protections for transgender people under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These protections stem from the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which determined that discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is unlawful in the workplace. However, many conservative policymakers and activists have pushed to exclude gender identity from these protections, ignoring established legal precedent.
She also lacks a quorum to enact such changes at the EEOC. Despite these legal constraints, the release states Lucas’ intent to push for the revocation of these protections and to establish transgender bathroom bans in workplaces.

Lucas echoed these arguments in Tuesday’s announcement, stating, “It is neither harassment nor discrimination for a business to draw distinctions between the sexes in providing single-sex bathrooms or other similar facilities which implicate these significant privacy and safety interests. And the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County does not demand otherwise: the Court explicitly stated that it did ‘not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.’”

Lucas has been a staunch Trump ally since his first term, having been appointed to the EEOC in 2020. Throughout her tenure, she has consistently opposed measures she labels as “DEI,” particularly those supporting transgender women’s inclusion in women’s spaces. Initially, her focus was on what she framed as threats to “religious liberty,” advocating for individuals with “religious objections” to COVID-19 prevention measures during the height of the pandemic. However, by late 2022, she had shifted her attention toward anti-trans politics, aligning with conservative judges to oppose transgender people’s right to use restrooms that match their gender identity.

She gradually built a career off of appeasing her far right colleagues, going as far as to appear on Fox News to oppose affirmative action policies. Her appearances in right-wing media and in making public statements opposed to LGBTQ+ rights only increased in the years that followed. She would often be seen making public statements that opposed “identity politics,” using that as a means to justify her voting against Biden-era policies that protected the rights of transgender workers.

These policies align with the broader conservative backlash against Biden-era protections for transgender workers. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton previously sued the EEOC over guidelines that, based on Bostock and Title VII, affirmed that transgender employees should not face discrimination and should be allowed to use facilities that align with their gender identity. Additionally, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, joined by 17 other conservative attorneys general, filed a separate lawsuit seeking to dismantle these protections, further signaling the right’s concerted effort to roll back transgender rights in the workplace.

These rollbacks on transgender rights mark only the beginning of the Trump administration’s broader assault on transgender individuals. Less than two weeks into his second term, Trump issued an executive order targeting gender-affirming care for minors, attempting to strip transgender youth of access to life-saving medical treatment. He also reinstated a ban on transgender service members, branding their “lifestyle” as incompatible with military service and claiming they lack “honor, truthfulness, and discipline.”

The fight over transgender rights is far from over. Trump’s executive orders will face immediate legal challenges, and activists across the country are already mobilizing in response. With each new directive, the stakes grow higher, but history has shown that attempts to erase transgender people from public life will face fierce resistance. Courts, advocacy groups, and civil rights organizations are preparing for a prolonged battle, one that will determine how far the administration can go in rolling back protections. The outcome remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: no executive order can erase the transgender community.