Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email partnerships@19thnews.org.

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

Topics

  • Abortion
  • Election 2024
  • Education
  • LGBTQ+
  • Caregiving
  • Environment & Climate
  • Business & Economy
View all topics

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact community@19thnews.org for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email community@19thnews.org to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at community@19thnews.org.

  • Latest Stories
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Ways to Give
  • Search
  • Contact
Donate
Home

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

Topics

  • Abortion
  • Election 2024
  • Education
  • LGBTQ+
  • Caregiving
  • Environment & Climate
  • Business & Economy
View all topics

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact community@19thnews.org for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email community@19thnews.org to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at community@19thnews.org.

  • Latest Stories
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Ways to Give
  • Search
  • Contact

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact community@19thnews.org for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email community@19thnews.org to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at community@19thnews.org.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

LGBTQ+

LGBTQ+ employees can’t be misgendered or denied bathrooms at work, new federal rules say

New guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission strengthens protections for transgender and nonbinary employees in American workplaces for the first time in 25 years.

A trans woman attends a staff meeting at the office.
Under the new EEOC guidance, employers who consistently call workers by the wrong pronouns or name could be found to be creating a hostile work environment. (Getty Images)

Chabeli Carrazana

Economy and Child Care Reporter

Published

2024-04-30 15:05
3:05
April 30, 2024
pm

Republish this story

Share

  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Email

Republish this story

LGBTQ+ workers who are misgendered by their employers or blocked from accessing restrooms consistent with their gender identity will now get additional workplace protections as a result of new guidance issued Monday by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

It’s the first time in 25 years that the EEOC has issued new rules on workplace discrimination — a change precipitated in part by the 2020 Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark decision that found that LGBTQ+ workers are protected from workplace discrimination. 

“We are really pleased to be issuing this guidance today to reflect our commitment to protecting everyone, and particularly those really vulnerable persons from underserved communities, from harassment in the workplace,” said Charlotte Burrows, the chair of the EEOC, during a call with reporters Monday announcing the changes.

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Under the new guidance, employers who consistently call workers by the wrong pronouns or name could be found to be creating a hostile work environment. Similarly, denying an employee access to a bathroom, or other sex-segregated facility such as a lactation or changing room, appropriate with their gender identity could be committing workplace harassment. The guidance goes into effect immediately. 

The EEOC’s guidance is not law, but it does indicate how the commission will interpret harassment cases that are brought to the agency, which is responsible for enforcing civil rights workplace protections. This year, for example, the commission settled a case with several trucking companies that allegedly harassed and then fired two gay mechanics because of their sexual orientation. The companies had to pay $460,000 “and furnish significant equitable relief” as part of the settlement.  

  • More from The 19th
    A transgender woman uses a laptop to work from home.
  • Paid less for being trans, a woman and a trans woman
  • The 19th Explains: Why there’s growing momentum for paid leave policies
  • The 19th Explains: How you can make bathrooms safer for trans and nonbinary people

Burrows said the new guidance was necessary because harassment is pervasive in American workplaces. Employer bias on the basis of race, sex, disability or another characteristic made up more than a third of the cases the EEOC reviewed between fiscal years 2016 and 2023. But the agency had not issued new guidance on the matter since 1999, so, in October, the EEOC began to take public comments as it prepared to make updates. Staff reviewed about 38,000 comments to arrive at the new guidance, which consolidated and replaced five separate guidance documents issued by the EEOC between 1987 and 1999.

The new guidance also details protections that extend to remote workers and pregnant workers.

“We really talk about the proliferation of virtual work environments … online harassment does occur,” Burrows said. “The bottom line is: If the conduct is sufficiently tied to the workplace, has consequences in the workplace, and contributes to an employee’s hostile work environment, then that legal analysis as to whether or not it violates our civil rights laws is really going to be the same.” 

For LGBTQ+ workers, the EEOC’s guidance strengthens the impact of the 2020 Bostock decision, affecting an estimated 3.6 million employees. It also clarifies the requirements for employers.  

Emily Martin, the chief program officer for the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement that the guidance “makes clear that federal law does not allow workplaces to be in the business of using harassment to enforce sex stereotypes about how employees should live, present, or identify. This is illegal discrimination, plain and simple.”

Sign up for more news and context delivered to your inbox, daily

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact community@19thnews.org for help.

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email community@19thnews.org to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at community@19thnews.org.

The guidelines were approved by a 3-2 vote in the five-member commission, including by Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal.

“The guidance reflects important developments affirming that individuals are protected against harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” Kotagal said in a statement, adding that it also “answers the call of the #MeToo movement, which shined a bright light on the ripple effects of harassment and the need for urgent cultural and legal change.”

But Commissioner Andrea Lucas, who opposed the new guidance, said it “effectively eliminates single-sex workplace facilities” and impinges on women’s rights in the workplace, a controversial conservative talking point that many LGBTQ+ advocates say unnecessarily pits transgender people’s rights and women’s rights against each other.

Lucas, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said in a statement that “women’s sex-based rights in the workplace are under attack.” 

“There is no conflict between demanding rights for women and for all transgender people,” said Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, in a statement. “Attacking trans people does nothing to address the real problems women face. As feminists, we reject efforts to appropriate the rhetoric of ‘women’s rights’ to inflict harm on trans people, men or women.”

Instead, the move by the EEOC is a recognition of the challenges in modern workplaces, wrote ACLU senior staff attorney Gillian Thomas, “where the #MeToo movement, overdue reckoning with our nation’s violent racist history, and recognition of LGBTQ people’s right to be free from workplace discrimination, among other developments, have brought harassment’s perniciousness into sharp relief.”

Kate Sosin, The 19th’s LGBTQ+ reporter, contributed to this report.

Republish this story

Share

  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Email

Recommended for you

Close up shot of young asian nonbinary person with colorful hair looking away.
Despite federal protections, LGBTQ+ people are being mistreated at work
A pride flag is displayed outside a home
Judge preemptively blocks LGBTQ+ protections in Title IX and the workplace
A transfeminine executive meeting with a non-binary employee
The Supreme Court ruled on a landmark LGBTQ rights case. The DOJ has yet to enforce it.
A female construction worker stands near two male workers during a ceremony to mark the completion of a new building.
‘We just don’t hire women’: In the construction industry, discrimination runs rampant

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact community@19thnews.org for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email community@19thnews.org to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at community@19thnews.org.

Become a member

Explore more coverage from The 19th
Abortion Election 2024 Education LGBTQ+ Caregiving
View all topics

Support representative journalism today.

Learn more about membership.

  • Transparency
    • About
    • Team
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Community Guidelines
  • Newsroom
    • Latest Stories
    • 19th News Network
    • Podcast
    • Events
    • Careers
    • Fellowships
  • Newsletters
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • The Amendment
    • Event Invites
  • Support
    • Ways to Give
    • Sponsorship
    • Republishing
    • Volunteer

The 19th is a reader-supported nonprofit news organization. Our stories are free to republish with these guidelines.