by Eric Lendrum
The state of Texas filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Biden Administration, over a mandate enacted in June dictating that “transgender” individuals must be referred to by their preferred pronouns and be allowed to use restrooms of their choice, Fox News reports.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a statement on the lawsuit against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), said that “states should be able to choose protection of privacy for their employers over subjective views of gender.” Paxton declared that “this illegal guidance puts many women and children at risk. If the Biden administration thinks they can force states to comply with their political agenda, my office will fight against their radical attempt at social change.”
The mandate in question was first issued on June 15th by EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows, and featured the commission’s own interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the commission believes that this statute includes “transgender” people, those who suffer from a mental illness where they believe that they are not the gender they were born as, and who also believe that there are more than two genders.
The mandate forbids private employers from requiring “transgender” employees to comply with gender-based dress codes, while also dictating that they must let such employees use whichever restrooms they desire, and that such employees may file harassment charges against anyone who refers to them by anything other than their “preferred” pronouns.
Texas’s lawsuit says that the EEOC mandate violates federal law by deliberately misinterpreting a Supreme Court ruling in order to justify its new rules. The ruling in question is Bostock v. Clayton County, in the year 2020, where the Court ruled that Title VII does protect employees from being fired on the basis of sexual preference and “gender identity;” however, the Court made clear in its ruling that it was not making a broader statement on more specific everyday work policies such as restrooms or pronoun usage.
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Eric Lendrum graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was the Secretary of the College Republicans and the founding chairman of the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter. He has interned for Young America’s Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, and the White House, and has worked for numerous campaigns including the 2018 re-election of Congressman Devin Nunes (CA-22). He is currently a co-host of The Right Take podcast.
Photo “Gender Neutral Bathroom Sign” by Ted Eytan. CC BY-SA 2.0.
