Compliance Stuff

California employers are caught between two legal systems that are moving in opposite directions.   The Trump administration has reshaped U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforcement priorities, dialing back protections for transgender employees; revoking guidance on harassment; and asserting that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives may violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act . California has moved in the opposite direction over the past several years, codifying and actively enforcing protections under the Fair Employment and Housing Act and related regulations that expressly guarantee transgender employees the right to access restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity and the right to be addressed by names and pronouns corresponding to their gender identity or expression.  Title VII sets a floor, not a ceiling. So, California employers should remain diligent to meet the requirements of state and federal law, even...

On September 9, 2025, in  Anna Lange v. Houston County, Georgia, et. al ., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the denial of coverage for gender-affirming surgery was not discriminatory. This decision directly departed from the court’s 2-1 ruling by a three-member panel in 2024, which held that such an exclusion was, on its face, a form of sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 .    It also conflicted with other recent federal court opinions that have construed the exclusion of gender affirming care as unlawful. 1 Background The plaintiff, a transgender woman, has served as a deputy with the Houston County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia since 2006. In 2017, the plaintiff began openly presenting as female in the workplace. As an employee of the Sheriff’s Office, the plaintiff was enrolled in the County’s health insurance plan. As part of her gender-affirming treatment, the plaintiff underwent hormone therapy, consu...

On January 28, 2025, Andrea Lucas (R), the acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, issued a  statement  outlining her views on gender identity in the workplace, and listing a series of actions she has taken to “return” the agency “to its mission protecting women from sex-based discrimination in the workplace by rolling back the Biden administration’s gender identity agenda.” Among the actions Lucas identified that she has and will take to achieve this end include prioritizing compliance, investigations, and litigation to “defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single sex spaces at work”; removing EEOC employees’ ability to indicate pronouns in their communications; eliminating the use of the non-binary “X” gender marker for charges; and removing materials “promoting gender ideology” on the Commission’s internal and external websites. Lucas’s statement comes on the heels of the president’s recent...

Two cases show that courts consider alleged harassment or discrimination based on transgender or cisgender status to be true and valid under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Vacating summary judgment for the employer, a federal appeals court has ruled that while an occasional mistake using the incorrect name or pronouns will not create liability, misgendering an employee can be “severe and pervasive” enough to support a claim of hostile work environment under Title VII.  Copeland v. Ga. Dep’t of Corr. ,  97 F.4th 766 (11th Cir. 2024). Misgendering is using pronouns and gendered terms, such as man, woman, guy, and girl, other than the pronouns and the gender identity the employee has specified for them. In a “reverse” gender identity case, a federal district court has ruled that a cisgender man’s complaint that his transgender coworkers were treated more favorably than he has stated a legal claim sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.   McCreary v. Adult World, Inc. ...