The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has requested dismissal of nearly every lawsuit it filed in the previous year alleging discrimination against a transgender worker or workers, less than one month after Acting Chair Andrea Lucas announced the agency would focus on “rolling back the Biden administration’s gender identity agenda.”
According to court filings viewed by HR Dive, EEOC last week filed motions to dismiss at least six pending lawsuits. These include cases against a Holiday Inn Express owner; the owner of a Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel in Alabama; an Illinois hog farm; a pizzeria located in Chicago O’Hare International Airport; a Wendy’s operator based in southern Illinois; and a Lush location based in California’s Bay Area.
The complaints included a range of charges, including employers’ tolerance of deadnaming, misgendering, “outing,” and harassing and invasive comments from co-workers. Multiple lawsuits alleged retaliation, with workers reporting they had been fired after coming to their supervisors with complaints about the conduct.
EEOC filed the lawsuits under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which the U.S. Supreme Court determined to include employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in the landmark 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga. case.
In its motions to dismiss, the majority of which were filed Friday and used largely the same language, the agency pointed to President Donald Trump’s executive order on “gender ideology extremism” and to guidance from the Office of Personnel Management requiring all federal employees to comply with the order.
“The EEOC’s continued litigation of the claim in this action may be inconsistent with the Order and the OPM Guidance,” the agency stated in each motion.
“This dereliction of EEOC’s duty under its legal mandate requires immediate judicial intervention,” Equal Rights Advocates, a legal group that advocates for “gender justice in workplaces,” said in a statement Tuesday on the move. “Transgender and gender non-conforming employees deserve the full protection of our civil rights laws, as established by Congress and the Supreme Court, not selective enforcement based on political whims and hastily issued executive orders.”
EEOC told HR Dive it would not comment on litigation.
