EEOC instructs staff to sideline all new transgender discrimination cases, employees say

The federal agency tasked with protecting workers' civil rights is classifying all new gender identity-related discrimination cases as its lowest priority, essentially putting them on indefinite hold, according to two agency employees.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held a meeting on Wednesday clarifying how it would treat new worker complaints of gender-identity discrimination in view of President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two ''immutable'' sexes — male and female.

Staff who handle incoming charges, or intakes, were directed to code them as ''C,'' the lowest categorization in the EEOC's system that is usually reserved for meritless charges, according to the agency employees who attended the Microsoft Teams meeting for intake supervisors, district directors and support staff that was led by the EEOC's national intake coordinator. The employees asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to reveal the meeting details.

An EEOC spokesman declined to comment on the meeting, saying that ''per federal law, we cannot discuss investigatory practices.''

The decision is the latest step by the EEOC to back away from defending the rights of transgender and nonbinary workers in a major shift in civil rights enforcement under the Trump administration. In February, the EEOC moved to drop seven of its own pending lawsuits alleging discrimination against transgender and nonbinary people.

EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, a Republican, has said one of her priorities will be implementing Trump's executive order on gender and ''defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights.'' She had previously ordered that any worker discrimination charge that ''implicates'' Trump's executive order on gender should be elevated to headquarters for review.

This latest decision to bury gender identity-related complaints leaves transgender and nonbinary people experiencing discrimination at work with limited recourse. U.S. workers must file discrimination complaints through the EEOC in most cases before they can seek other legal avenues.

Giving gender identity-related cases the lowest priority essentially pre-determines that they are meritless, said Chai Feldblum, who was an EEOC commissioner from 2010-2019.

''If they say they are bringing it to a central location to give them due consideration, they at least have the facade of doing something,'' Feldblum said of Lucas' previous directive on gender identity cases. ''If they are sweeping them out the door as ''C'' charges, they are not doing their job.''

The EEOC has said that it will still issue ''right to sue'' notices in gender-identity related cases upon request, meaning workers can decide to pursue a lawsuit on their own. The agency will also honor requests for mediation, according to the employees who attended Wednesday's meeting. But if mediation fails, the EEOC will take no further action on the case, the employees said.

The EEOC's new approach to gender-identity related discrimination has raised a debate over whether the agency is acting in violation of the Supreme Court's 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, a landmark case that established that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits workplace discrimination based on gender identity.

Civil rights activists have accused the EEOC of illegally defying the Supreme Court and abdicating its duty to enforce anti-discrimination laws by abandoning gender-identity related lawsuits. Lucas has previously told The AP that the EEOC has a duty to comply with Trump's executive orders but she has not directly addressed the criticism that the agency's handling of gender-identity cases are in tension with the Supreme Court.

The EEOC in fiscal year 2024 received more than 3,000 charges alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and 3,000-plus in 2023, according to the agency's website.

________

Associated Press business reporter Alexandra Olson contributed to this report.

________ The Associated Press' women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.