• The EEOC voted 2–1 along party lines to rescind the 2024 anti-harassment guidance that recognized harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity as unlawful under Title VII.
• The reversal aligns with the Trump administration and EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas’s federal policy shift to define sex as immutable and binary.
• This rescission follows a federal court ruling that the EEOC had overstepped its authority with the original guidance, finding it had unlawfully broadened the interpretation of sex-based discrimination.

The 2024 harassment guidance, which was adopted in a 3–2 vote, broadly updated the EEOC’s interpretations of anti-harassment protections under federal law, but notably, it addressed new positions on harassment based on “race” and “color” and pregnancy and childbirth, as well as sex-based harassment against LGBTQ+ individuals.

The guidance came on the heels of the Supreme Court of the United States’ 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from making hiring or termination decisions as to employees or applicants based on their gender identity (including being transgender) or sexual orientation as unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII. However, a federal court in Texas vacated portions of the guidance in May 2025, finding that the EEOC had exceeded its authority.

Despite the court order, EEOC Chair Lucas, who voted against adopting the guidance in 2024, ...

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