The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted last week to rescind its 2024 harassment guidance, withdrawing LGBTQ-inclusive examples that had clarified how federal law applies to workplace harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The commission voted 2–1 on January 23 to repeal the guidance, which had been approved in 2024 during the Biden administration. The document, nearly 200 pages long, outlined how existing federal civil rights laws apply to workplace harassment and included more than 70 examples of unlawful conduct. Among them were examples addressing repeated misgendering, denial of restroom access, and harassment tied to sexual orientation and gender identity.
The vote followed changes to the commission’s makeup after President Donald Trump appointed two Republican commissioners, giving the agency a conservative majority. Andrea Lucas was named chair in January 2025, joined by Commissioner Brittany Panuccio, who was confirmed later that year. The dissenting vote came from Kalpana Kotagal, the commission’s sole Democrat.
The 2024 guidance built on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While the guidance itself was not legally binding, it was widely viewed as a roadmap for how the commission interprets and enforces federal law and is often cited by courts.
Republican commissioners objected most strongly to the guidance’s section on gender identity and sexual orientation. That section included examples such as the repeated and intentional use of a name or pronoun an employee no longer uses and denial of access to bathrooms consistent with a person’s gender identity. A federal judge in Texas blocked that portion of the guidance last year, ruling that the EEOC had exceeded its authority.
In a statement following the vote, Lucas said rescinding the guidance would not weaken enforcement. “Rescinding this guidance does not give employers license to engage in unlawful harassment,” she said. “Federal employment laws against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation remain firmly in place.”
Kotagal sharply disagreed. “There’s no reason to rescind the harassment guidance in its entirety,” she said. “Instead of adopting a thoughtful and surgical approach…the commission is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Worse, it is doing so without public input.”
LGBTQ+ advocates and Democratic lawmakers also condemned the decision. Human Rights Campaign legal policy director Cathryn Oakley said the move undermines workplace protections. “We all deserve a country that protects and defends civil rights for all, where our laws are enforced equally, our workplaces are safe for everyone, and people are held accountable for their actions,” she said.
While Title VII remains unchanged, legal experts note that without the 2024 guidance, employers and employees alike now have less clarity about how the EEOC will interpret harassment claims. For LGBTQ+ workers, advocates say the vote marks a significant shift in how the agency approaches enforcement, even as the underlying law remains the same.