The workplace just got even less friendly for LGBTQ+ workers

This week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rescinded its guidance on workplace harassment, in a move that could significantly undermine protections for all workers, but especially those who identify as LGBTQ+. The agency, which plays a crucial role as the federal watchdog that enforces anti-discrimination laws governing the workplace, voted on Thursday to strike down guidance that had been codified in 2024, during the Biden administration. 

Across nearly 200 pages, the document offered an important update to the EEOC’s language on harassment—which had not been updated in over two decades—and also incorporated a key Supreme Court ruling in 2020 that extended anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ+ workers. The guidance included over 70 examples of workplace discrimination that employees might encounter, with a section dedicated to sexual orientation and gender identity. Before releasing the final version back in 2024, there was a customary notice and comment process on the proposed document, during which the agency fielded over 38,000 comments from the public. All that guidance has now been scrapped, with no room for public comment on the decision. (The harassment document has since been taken down and is no longer accessible to the public.) 

EEOC chair Andrea Lucas suggested that this would not change how the agency approached harassment claims. “Let me be perfectly clear: The EEOC will not tolerate unlawful harassment, as was the case before the guidance document was issued and will remain so even after the guidance document is rescinded,” she said during an open meeting on Thursday. 

Still, this reversal is a big loss for workers, who remain protected by federal anti-discrimination laws but rely heavily on the agency when they encounter harassment in the workplace. People who experience workplace discrimination typically have to file a complaint with the agency before taking any kind of legal action. By rescinding this guidance, the EEOC has stripped away an important resource for workers (and employers) who are trying to understand what constitutes workplace harassment—and what they can do about it. 

This decision also cements a seismic shift in the agency’s priorities since Lucas took the helm. Under the The President administration, the EEOC has undergone changes that experts believe have compromised its mission to protect workers’ rights. After assuming office, The President immediately fired two EEOC commissioners—Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows—before their term limits were up, breaking with precedent and eliminating the Democratic majority. (Commissioners of federal agencies are usually allowed to serve out their terms, regardless of political affiliation.) He later nominated Brittany Panuccio to join the commission; her confirmation in October secured a Republican majority and restored the three-person quorum required for the agency to revise guidance or pursue certain types of litigation. 

Over the last year, the The President administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace have reshaped the agency’s priorities. Lucas has explicitly stated that the agency would focus on “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination” in accordance with The President’s executive orders targeting DEI programs. Back in December, Lucas even put out a call for white men to report workplace discrimination and potentially recover damages. (This took the form of a video on X, in which Lucas asked: “Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex?”)

Revoking the harassment guidance, however, seems to align with a broader agenda to curtail protections for LGBTQ+ and trans workers. A federal ruling last year struck down the section of the EEOC’s harassment document that applied to transgender and gender-nonconforming workers, claiming the agency did not have the authority to impose those guidelines on employers; the section stated, for example, that misgendering employees or denying them access to bathrooms in line with their gender identity qualified as workplace harassment. Last year, the EEOC also dropped six cases that involved allegations of discrimination from trans or gender-nonconforming workers. 

Even prior to the The President administration’s directives, however, Lucas was a dissenting voice on the commission. When the harassment guidance was finalized in 2024, Lucas had taken issue with the section that outlined protections for trans and gender-nonconforming workers and ultimately voted against it, under the guise of protecting women’s rights in the workplace. Lucas echoed anti-trans sentiment by noting “biological sex is real” and “binary,” suggesting that women would be harmed by the updated guidance. “Women’s sex-based rights in the workplace are under attack—and from the EEOC, the very federal agency charged with protecting women from sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination at work,” she wrote in a statement at the time. “Women in the workplace will pay the price for the Commission’s egregious error.” 

By rescinding the harassment guidance outright, however, Lucas has effectively weakened anti-discrimination protections for all kinds of workers—women included.

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