Federal Agency Tosses Harassment Handbook Following Fight Over Trans Protections

January 23, 2026 Dan Tracer

The move eliminates decades of workplace harassment guidance after backlash to protections for trans employees, leaving workers and employers with less clarity.

Featured image by designer491 via Getty Images

The federal agency that enforces workplace discrimination laws has officially withdrawn guidance that outlined protections for transgender workers.

On Thursday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted 2 to 1 to rescind its 2024 anti harassment guidance, a nearly 200-page document that employers had relied on to understand what unlawful harassment looks like in real-world situations. That guidance included examples covering race, sex, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

The most contested section addressed transgender employees. Drawing on the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, the guidance explained that repeated misgendering, intentional misuse of names or pronouns, and denying access to bathrooms aligned with a person’s gender identity could qualify as harassment under federal law.

That interpretation has long been opposed by EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, who voted against the guidance when it was adopted under the Biden administration and again supported rescinding it this week. In her earlier dissent, Lucas wrote, “Biological sex is real, and it matters. Sex is binary (male and female) and is immutable. It is not harassment to acknowledge these truths — or to use language like pronouns that flow from these realities, even repeatedly.”

Lucas has argued that Bostock only applies to hiring and firing decisions, not broader workplace conditions.

The vote also follows a May 2025 decision by a federal judge in Texas that struck down the guidance sections related to sexual orientation and gender identity. Those portions had already been greyed out online, leading many to question why the entire document needed to be scrapped.

Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the EEOC’s lone Democrat, voted against the move. “There’s no reason to rescind the harassment guidance in its entirety,” she said, according to NPR. “Instead of adopting a thoughtful and surgical approach to excise the sections the majority disagrees with or suggest an alternative, the commission is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Worse, it is doing so without public input.”

Former EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows, who oversaw the 2024 guidance before being fired earlier this year, also warned that rescinding it leaves employers and workers in the dark. She noted the document was shaped by tens of thousands of public comments and years of workplace data. “It is not only shocking to have the entire document rescinded, but to have it rescinded without any public comment — it is a shocking and very radical statement from this administration,” she said.

Lucas has insisted the decision does not weaken enforcement. “Let me be perfectly clear: The EEOC will not tolerate unlawful harassment,” she said ahead of the vote.

Legally, federal anti-discrimination laws remain unchanged. But without clear guidance, employers now have less direction, and trans workers are left with fewer explicit federal protections.