{"id":810731,"date":"2021-09-24T16:59:05","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T20:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=810731"},"modified":"2021-09-24T16:59:06","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T20:59:06","slug":"texas-sues-biden-administration-over-federal-transgender-guidance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/texas-sues-biden-administration-over-federal-transgender-guidance\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Sues Biden Administration Over Federal Transgender Guidance"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftexas-sues-biden-administration-over-federal-transgender-guidance%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=810731&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"28.815165876777\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/courts\/\">The Courts<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says employers must use preferred pronouns<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"485\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/bathroom-sign.jpg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt=\"Transgender Bathrooms\" srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 485px) 100vw, 485px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/bathroom-sign.jpg 485w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/bathroom-sign-300x210.jpg 300w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tAP\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/kevin-daley\/\" title=\"Posts by Kevin Daley\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Kevin Daley<\/a> \u2022 September 24, 2021 4:55 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"125.27149664284\">\n<p>Texas is suing the Biden administration to invalidate a federal civil rights directive on pronoun usage and bathroom access in the workplace.<\/p>\n<p>The challenge is to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission advisory that says employers must let LGBT workers access the bathrooms of their choice. The EEOC warned in the same advisory that failure to use a worker&#8217;s preferred pronouns could amount to unlawful harassment. The document is based on the Supreme Court&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/courts\/supreme-court-delivers-surprise-victory-for-gay-rights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">landmark<\/a> gay rights decision, <em>Bostock<\/em> v. <em>Clayton County<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>Bostock<\/em>, the Supreme Court said it is illegal under federal law to fire someone for being gay or transgender. President Joe Biden signed an executive order committing to a whole-of-government implementation of the <em>Bostock<\/em> decision on his first day in office. The order intends to guarantee civil rights protections for LGBT people in a wide range of contexts, from housing to refugee resettlement. The order put the administration on a collision course with red state dissenters on issues like bathroom access and women&#8217;s sports.<\/p>\n<p>Texas says the EEOC&#8217;s directive goes well beyond the Court&#8217;s holding in <em>Bostock<\/em> and violates the First Amendment to the extent it forces workers to use a person&#8217;s preferred pronouns.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;States should be able to choose protection of privacy for their employers over subjective views of gender, and this illegal guidance puts many women and children at risk,&#8221; Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said in a statement. &#8220;These backdoor attempts to force businesses, including the state of Texas, to align with [EEOC&#8217;s] beliefs is unacceptable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/courts\/career-officials-chafe-at-eeoc-transgender-guidance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> in June that some EEOC officials think Democratic appointees violated internal procedures to issue the document, and some career attorneys at the agency are anxious about defending it in court.<\/p>\n<p>Texas is suing because many of the state&#8217;s agencies could face investigations or lawsuits if the document is allowed to stand. For example, the Texas Department of Agriculture requires its employees to dress &#8220;tastefully and professionally and be well groomed,&#8221; according to the complaint. It would consider an employee &#8220;dressed as a member of the opposite sex&#8221; to be in violation of the dress code policy. It does not have a policy on pronoun usage.<\/p>\n<p>Agency offices have both mixed-sex bathrooms and unisex, single-occupancy bathrooms. State lawyers said in the complaint that the agency will not allow employees to use bathrooms inconsistent with their biological sex.<\/p>\n<p>Though the Court ruled narrowly in <em>Bostock<\/em>, administration lawyers and judicial liberals say the justices&#8217; reasoning naturally applies to other forms of LGBT discrimination. Lawyers for the state counter that <em>Bostock<\/em> is limited to and cannot justify guidance as expansive as EEOC&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>Bostock<\/em> is far narrower than the June 15 guidance,&#8221; the lawsuit reads. &#8220;<em>Bostock<\/em> explicitly disclaimed that it was deciding whether sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes would violate Title VII. Nor did the Court ever address the issue of pronouns.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Court&#8217;s decision said it was not broaching any disputes involving &#8220;sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;None of these other laws are before us; we have not had the benefit of adversarial testing about the meaning of their terms, and we do not prejudge any such question today,&#8221; the decision reads.<\/p>\n<p>An agency spokeswoman told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> in June that the guidance document simply applies the Court&#8217;s reasoning in <em>Bostock<\/em> to new contexts, which is not unusual.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;EEOC is also charged by statute with the responsibility to enforce the law which includes applying established principles to new fact patterns,&#8221; EEOC spokeswoman Christine Saah Nazer said. &#8220;It is not restricted to opining only on issues the Supreme Court has already decided.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere in the lawsuit, state lawyers say EEOC&#8217;s guidance forces them to violate their employees&#8217; free speech rights.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By purporting to require that employers and their employees use of an individual&#8217;s preferred pronouns based on subjective gender identity rather than biological sex, the June 15 Guidance unconstitutionally compels and restrains speech,&#8221; the lawsuit reads.<\/p>\n<p>EEOC chair Charlotte Burrows issued the document without a vote of the agency&#8217;s commission. The lawsuit says this is another reason for the court to block it.<\/p>\n<p>The case, <em>Texas<\/em> v. <em>EEOC<\/em>, has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"View Texas v. EEOC complaint on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/527316423\/Texas-v-EEOC-complaint#from_embed\">Texas v. EEOC complaint<\/a> by <a title=\"View Washington Free Beacon&#039;s profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/publisher\/247263517\/Washington-Free-Beacon#from_embed\">Washington Free Beacon<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Courts Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says employers must use preferred pronouns  AP  Kevin Daley \u2022 September 24, 2021 4:55 pm Texas is &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}