Federal Judge Halts EEOC’s Attempt to Mandate Gender Identity Protections

A Texas federal court has weighed in on how far the EEOC can go when interpreting Title VII.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t go well for the EEOC.

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TL;DR: A Texas federal court just vacated the parts of the EEOC’s new harassment guidance that deal with gender identity. The judge held that the EEOC overstepped its authority by telling employers they may violate Title VII by denying transgender workers access to bathrooms, dress codes, or pronouns that align with their gender identity.

🖉 Here’s a link to the full opinion.

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The EEOC’s 2024 Guidance and the Lawsuit That Followed

In April 2024, the EEOC published a 189-page “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace”. The guidance described harassment based on gender identity—including intentional misgendering or denying restroom access aligned with a worker’s gender identity—as a form of sex discrimination under Title VII.

The State of Texas and The Heritage Foundation sued. They claimed the EEOC lacked the legal authority to require employers to accommodate transgender employees’ dress, pronouns, or bathroom use.

The court agreed. It granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs, vacated the gender identity portions of the guidance, and rejected the EEOC’s cross-motion.

How the Plaintiffs Framed the Burden—and Why It Mattered

This isn’t the first time this court tangled with the EEOC over gender identity. In 2021, it had already struck down a prior technical assistance document that the EEOC issued after the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision.

In the 2024 guidance, the EEOC claimed that Title VII prohibits harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Then, the EEOC took it a step further. Among other things, it included hypotheticals where refusing to use a transgender worker’s preferred pronouns or denying access to facilities aligned with their gender identity would create a hostile work environment. These examples, the plaintiffs argued, signaled that the EEOC was imposing new legal obligations rather than merely interpreting existing law—an argument the court would later take seriously.

Where the EEOC Overstepped Its Statutory Authority

According to the court, the EEOC went too far in two key ways:

1. It redefined “sex” in Title VII. Title VII prohibits discrimination “because of sex.” The statute does define sex to include pregnancy, but not gender identity or sexual orientation. The court said the EEOC had no authority to expand that definition unilaterally “beyond the biological binary: male and female.”
2. It invented new obligations. The court noted that Title VII forbids discriminatory treatment, but doesn’t require employers to adopt gender-identity-based accommodations like pronouns or bathroom access. Refusing a transgender worker’s requests does not, in and of itself, create a hostile work environment.

The court emphasized that the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision was limited to discriminatory firings—not dress codes, bathrooms, or pronouns. It noted that Bostock explicitly declined to address “bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.” The court reasoned that because Bostock left those questions unanswered, the EEOC could not fill in the gaps by creating new rules under the guise of guidance. In short, the EEOC’s use of Bostock as a basis for requiring gender-identity-based accommodations was, in the court’s view, an impermissible extension of a narrow holding.

What the Court Ordered—and What It Didn’t

The court vacated only the portions of the EEOC’s guidance related to gender identity. It declined to issue a broader injunction, noting that vacatur alone was enough to redress the plaintiffs’ harm. While the ruling directly applies only to the parties in the case, vacatur nullifies the challenged sections of the guidance as a whole, meaning the EEOC cannot rely on or enforce those provisions against other employers—at least for now.

What This Means for Employer Compliance

• Title VII does not require certain specific actions by employers based on gender identity. For now, employers are not legally required to make certain adjustments or allowances, such as using preferred pronouns, allowing access to bathrooms aligned with gender identity, or permitting dress code flexibility, to support transgender employees.
• Litigation risk remains. The EEOC cannot enforce the vacated provisions, but individual lawsuits based on Bostock and similar cases may still move forward. The rest of the EEOC’s 2024 harassment guidance remains in effect and continues to apply.
• Change may come from the EEOC itself. With a quorum of Republican commissioners currently in place, the EEOC may choose to formally rescind or revise the gender identity portions of the 2024 guidance—especially now that a federal court has vacated them. Employers should watch for additional developments.

One Last Thing

Employers remain free to adopt the EEOC’s vacated guidance on gender identity as part of their internal policies. Practices like using preferred pronouns or allowing bathroom access based on gender identity are not federally required, but still lawful.

Such policies can promote a respectful workplace, support retention, and reduce risk under other legal regimes. However, some states—especially in the public sector—restrict gender identity-related policies. Multistate employers should monitor state laws closely and adjust practices accordingly.