Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has once again sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and other members of President Joe Biden’s administration in an effort to stop guidance from going into effect that the attorney general says will unlawfully require employers to implement “transgender mandates.”
Paxton announced the lawsuit—filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern Texas in Amarillo—in an Aug. 15 press release.
The legal challenge centers on federal guidance published in April that extends Title VII workforce protections for transgender employees by clarifying the definition of harassment under federal law.
In issuing the guidance, the EEOC said it will “help people feel safe on the job and assist employers in creating respectful workplaces.”
However, Paxton says it is unlawful, and that it opens private and state employers up to EEOC lawsuits if they do not accommodate employees’ preferred gender identity as opposed to their biological sex.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is attempting yet again to rewrite federal law through undemocratic and illegal agency action,” Paxton said.
The EEOC’s guidance states that sex-based discrimination under Title VII includes employment discrimination “based on sexual orientation or gender identity, including how that identity is expressed.”
Examples include, “Harassing conduct based on sexual orientation or gender identity includes epithets regarding sexual orientation or gender identity; physical assault due to sexual orientation or gender identity; outing (disclosure of an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity without permission); harassing conduct because an individual does not present in a manner that would stereotypically be associated with that person’s sex; [and] repeated and intentional use of a name or pronoun inconsistent with the individual’s known gender identity (misgendering).”
‘Blatant Abuse of Federal Power’
Under the guidance, harassment also includes the “denial of access to a bathroom or other sex-segregated facility consistent with the individual’s gender identity.”
In his lawsuit, Paxton argued that the EEOC guidance relies on an “intentional misrepresentation” of the Bostock v. Clayton decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, in which the nation’s highest court ruled that employers can’t discriminate based on homosexuality or transgender identity.
“The Bostock majority ‘proceed[ed] on the assumption that ‘sex’ … refer[s] only to biological distinctions between male and female,’ and did not include ‘norms concerning gender identity,’” Paxton said.
He further argued the agency has exceeded its statutory authority by issuing guidance that contradicts the law and violates the Administrative Procedure Act.
The Texas Attorney General asked the court to permanently enjoin the guidance and prevent the Biden administration from enforcing any aspect of the rule.
Paxton’s lawsuit, which was filed alongside conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, also lists EEOC Chairwoman Charlotte Burrows as a defendant.
It marks Paxton’s second lawsuit against the EEOC’s guidance after U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rejected an earlier challenge in July, noting the attorney general’s complaint referred to a prior ruling on a previous document but was filed against a new document, and thus required a new lawsuit.
The judge stopped short of ruling on the merits of the case, and Paxton filed the new lawsuit.
Dan Mauler, general counsel for The Heritage Foundation, said it is proud to join Texas in its lawsuit.
The Epoch Times has contacted the EEOC and the Department of Justice for comment.
“stop guidance from going into effect that the attorney general says will unlawfully require employers to implement “transgender mandates.”,,,,first their cut, slash and remove the body parts Dr Kevorkian and Dr. Frankenstein people are let loose upon THE PEOPLE to enable them to create more gender adulterated monsters of the midway, between being a man or a woman, now they seek to take the pitchforks from the peasants and force them to fork over the power of using their own minds to become unable to determine what is good or what is evil in this world, and live unmolested in what used to be called American innocence. Time for us peasants to take back our pitchforks and poke holes first into their arguments, then into the enemy itself if need be. If these mind-altered then later body-altered insane liberals actually seek to “help people feel safe on the job and assist employers in creating respectful workplaces.”, then save us from being force exposed to their party created freaks, and carnival side-show geeks, on the liberally insanity created formerly sane safe streets and workplaces of America. Their thing stops where our noses begin. Wallow in the mud if you will, but don’t force WE THE PEOPLE to jump into the pig pens with you. Tolerance is one thing, acceptance and forced inclusion in this insanity is another.
The majority of democrats neither believe in or worship the Lord God Almighty and his son Jesus Christ. So this has no meaning to them.
Romans 1:26-32 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
“Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”,,,,,guess what Democrat voting Christians?,,,,,,,you approve of those practices and enable them by voting these reprobates into office to practice these human corruptions, according to St. paul,,,who actually met Jesus on the Road to Damascus, you also will receive the same punishments and name removals from the book of life as those who actually commit these crimes against humanity. If that is not a wakeup call, then you will just like Joe Biden, continue to snooze and ultimately lose an existence in the next dimension of afterlife existence. He/She who is not with God, is against him. Maybe you just need to change teams from team Consumption to Team Creation from leaders who destroy our cities to men who build buildings. Do you want to learn how to walk on water in this life, or Moonwalk on the Lake of fire with Jacksonian child molesters?