EEOC Allows Single-Sex Facilities in Federal Agencies

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled Thursday that federal agencies may maintain single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms, allowing them to exclude employees who identify as transgender from using facilities designated for the opposite sex. The 2-1 decision came in an appeal filed by a civilian information technology specialist at Fort Riley, Kansas, who works for the U.S. Army and sought access to women's facilities after informing management in summer 2025 that she identifies as a woman.

The Army denied the request, and an internal complaint was dismissed before the employee appealed to the EEOC. In its opinion, the commission held that the denial did not violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars employment discrimination based on sex. The majority reasoned that men and women are not similarly situated in intimate spaces like bathrooms due to enduring physical differences between the sexes. "Single-sex bathrooms are permissible only because the sexes are not similarly situated in this specific context," the decision stated, emphasizing that such separations protect the privacy of all employees without favoring one sex over another.