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EEOC will consider trans discrimination cases after burying them for months
- John Russell, LGBTQ Nation
- Jul 10
- 2 min read
Cases involving anti-trans workplace discrimination will now receive a heightened level of review from the office of acting EEOC chair Andrea Lucas.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will reportedly resume considering discrimination cases brought by transgender people after a months-long pause in which staffers were ordered to automatically classify such complaints as “meritless.”
In a July 1 email, EEOC field operations director Thomas Colclough said that the agency will resume processing complaints that “fall squarely” under legal precedent set by the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, according to the Washington Post. The 2020 ruling established that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Colclough wrote that cases involving discrimination against trans employees in hiring, discharge, and promotion would once again be considered, though he said nothing about investigations of workplace harassment, the Post noted.
However, cases involving anti-trans workplace discrimination will now receive a heightened level of review, including by a senior attorney and the office of acting EEOC chair Andrea Lucas.
The president named Lucas the agency’s acting chair in January, after he fired two Democratic EEOC commissioners as well as the agency’s general counsel. Lucas opposes both DEI initiatives and federal civil rights protections for transgender people and has said that her priorities include “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination.”
Following a January 20 executive order declaring that the U.S. government would only recognize an individual’s sex as determined by their “immutable biological classification as either male or female,” Lucas stated that while the agency would continue accepting all discrimination charges filed by workers, complaints that “implicate” the anti-trans executive order would be elevated to headquarters for review. Since February, the EEOC has moved to drop at least six lawsuits involving discrimination against trans and nonbinary workers.
In April, staffers at the EEOC were reportedly instructed to classify new gender identity discrimination cases as code “C,” the agency’s lowest priority and one that staffers said is generally reserved for meritless complaints.
According to the Post, it’s unclear why the EEOC has reversed course. But critics like Equal Rights Advocates executive director Noreen Farrell have pointed out that the agency’s position on cases of gender identity discrimination was at odds with Bostock.
Adam Harrison, an attorney representing plaintiffs in two of the cases dropped by the EEOC this year, told the Post that while it’s good news that the agency is once again considering anti-trans discrimination cases, the pause had real consequences.
“Make no mistake, transgender and nonbinary people whose civil rights were violated were turned away during these last five months,” Harrison said. “And as long as that’s been happening, these people’s rights have been expiring.”
(c) 2025, LGBTQ Nation
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