On May 15, 2025, Judge Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s guidance requiring bathroom, dress, and pronoun accommodations exceeded its authority and impermissibly expanded the scope of “sex” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) beyond the biological binary. Judge Kacsmaryk also stated that “Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women.”
This decision appears at odds with the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII protects gay, lesbian and transgender individuals from discrimination in employment. The decision was, however, consistent with the Trump administration’s recent executive order seeking to limit gender identity to a binary construct, and objecting to the perceived breadth with which the courts have interpreted Bostock.
Along these same lines, the administration also revised the annual EEO-1 report forms (which all employers with 100 or more employees are required to complete), eliminating the option for employers to voluntarily report employees who self-identify as “non-binary.” Employers now only have the option to report employees as male or female.