Call me an extremist – that's what President Trump thinks.
why? I believe that trans people exist and deserve respect, and under a binding Supreme Court precedent, they are entitled to protection from workplace harassment.
Because of this “extremism,” I was illegally fired on January 27th as a commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee in just a week of the Trump administration.
In reality, it was Trump who took the extreme view of him by declaring that there is no such thing as a trans person. One of his days Presidential Order He states that there are only two genders: male and female. He said this reflects an “unchanging biological classification” that defeats “a false claim that men can identify with women, and therefore become women and vice versa.”
It is immeasurable that the new administration will deny almost the existence of 1.6 million Americans Transgender (according to a 2022 Williams Institute survey). Furthermore, denying the protections applied when trans people are harassed based on race, national origin or other forms of sex discrimination is against the law and bad business, cruel and inhumane. It's target.
In 2020, the Supreme Court held that prohibitions of employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity cover discrimination. And for decades, courts have recognized that harassment that creates a hostile work environment is illegal.
Reflecting this authority, last year, EEOC Guidance has been adopted Includes intentional and repeated ignorance of a worker's gender status, except for harassment of transgender workers. For example, everyday misconceptions can violate the law by creating hostile environments. Therefore, you can “dead.” It intentionally refers to a transgender person with the name you used before the transition.
For example, Asher Lucas, a transgender manager at a restaurant in Culver, Michigan, has repeatedly failed him, leading to his death, revealing his birth name to another employee, the EEOC. When I report that He filed a lawsuit Prove his rights.
EEOC too Safe Relief For Quinn Gambino, a transgender employee at TC Wheelers Restaurant in Buffalo, New York, he was targeting crude and disparaging references to his transgender status. Transitions and genitals.
These protections are at serious risk in this administration. Andrea Lucas, the new acting committee chair at EEOC, has released her view that misgender and denaming are completely legal. in press releaseshe says sex is “binary.” . . And immutable [and] It is not harassment to acknowledge these truths or use languages like pronouns that flow from these reality. ”
Lucas' offensive views are supported by the White House. One Executive Order daily instructs the EEOC to prioritize investigations and litigation, enforcing workers' freedom to express the binary nature of sex, thereby green light workplaces for transgender people effectively communicate harassment.
Therefore, the president will secure a Republican majority on the committee – the result of having to wait until my term expired in 2026 – the agency will have to stake a kind of abuse of Gambino and Lucas. I have no doubt refused any effort to correct it.
And there's more. The Human Resources Administration has “promoted or reflected gender ideology” (i.e., recognised the existence of transgender people) and has put an end to agency programs and policies that place employees in such programs on vacation. Masu.
The government requires trans men to identify their passports as women, and vice versa, leading to inevitable humiliation while traveling. Transgender men and women are kicked out of the military. And, practically, it may be impossible for trans people to use bathrooms outside their homes. Those who exist as men are not welcome in the women's toilets.
It's probably hard for non-trans people like me to understand the threat this administration poses to some of our most vulnerable people. But don't make any mistakes. These directives target, dehumanize, and inflict immeasurable suffering on 1.6 million Americans.
They can fire me millions of times, but that won't change these truths: trans people are people. They wear uniforms in our country. They serve you On the drive-thru line. They have the rights.
We all have a stake in rewinding this cruel attack on trans people and the fundamental principles of civil rights.
Jocelyn Samuels was a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee from 2020 to the final week of January 2025, and was confirmed by a majority in the US Senate for a term that lasts until 2026. Director of the Rights Division from 2013 to 2014 and the Civil Rights Health and Welfare Bureau from 2014 to 2017.
