By CLAIRE SAVAGE, Associated Press
The federal agency tasked with protecting workers’ civil rights is classifying all new gender identity-related discrimination cases as its lowest priority, essentially putting them on indefinite hold, according to two agency employees.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held a meeting on Wednesday clarifying how it would treat new worker complaints of gender-identity discrimination in view of President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two “immutable” sexes — male and female.
Staff who handle incoming charges, or intakes, were directed to code them as “C,” the lowest categorization in the EEOC’s system that is usually reserved for meritless charges, according to the agency employees who attended the Microsoft Teams meeting for intake supervisors, district directors and support staff that was led by the EEOC’s national intake coordinator. The employees asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to reveal the meeting details.
An EEOC spokesman declined to comment on the meeting, saying that “per federal law, we cannot discuss investigatory practices.”
The decision is the latest step by the EEOC to back away from defending the rights of transgender and nonbinary workers in a major shift in civil rights enforcement under the Trump administration. In February,…
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