Judge tosses feds’ transgender guidance in win for Texas, Heritage Foundation

A federal judge threw out a Biden-era directive warning employers that failing to abide by their transgender employees’ pronoun, dress and restroom preferences constituted sex-based workplace harassment.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk found that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exceeded its regulatory authority with its 2024 enforcement guidance that expanded Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination in the workplace to include gender identity.

“By redefining the core definition of ’sex,’ the Enforcement Guidance fundamentally reshapes the scope of Title VII,” said Judge Kacsmaryk in his Thursday ruling. “And in so reshaping Title VII, the guidance exceeds its authorization to issue procedural rules governing the implementation of Title VII.”

Instead, he said, “the guidance enters the forbidden realm of substance, moving beyond the plain text of Title VII or binding Supreme Court precedent to create a new unauthorized definition.”

The judge, a Trump appointee, granted the motion for summary judgment to vacate the relevant portion of the guidance filed by Texas and the Heritage Foundation against the EEOC.

“The Biden EEOC tried to compel businesses — and the American people — to deny basic biological truth,” said Heritage President Kevin Roberts in a Friday statement. “Today, thanks to the great state of Texas and the work of my Heritage colleagues, a federal judge said: not so fast.”

The EEOC argued that the enforcement guidance was consistent with the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, but Judge Kacsmaryk disagreed, saying the ruling “expressly refused to define ’sex’ under Title VII.”

Dan Mauler, Heritage general counsel and secretary, said the decision represented “a great day for the rule of law, common sense, and women and girls across the country.”

“Biden’s EEOC attempted to force all businesses and state governments to permit biological men into women-only spaces, including restrooms and locker rooms,” he said. “Even worse, the Biden EEOC tried to force employees to lie about fundamental, undeniable truth by requiring employees use preferred pronouns over biological fact.”

BIG win for America today! A judge sided with @Heritage in our suit against Biden’s ridiculous employer rules.

From @KevinRobertsTX: “You don’t have to pretend men are women. And you don’t have to lie to keep your job.”

More from the victory in TX: https://t.co/6EzILlKKON pic.twitter.com/L4TTVEfyF0

— Cody Sargent (@codydsargent) May 16, 2025

The decision represents the latest in the EEOC’s transgender-rights unraveling as President Trump took office.

In his Jan. 20 executive order recognizing two sexes, Mr. Trump specifically directed the agency to rescind the 2024 “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace” guidance.

He also removed two Democrat-nominated EEOC commissioners, Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuel, and appointed Andrea Lucas as acting chair, but the departures left the agency without the quorum needed to repeal the guidance.