Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

18. Department of Labor and Related Agencies · Major

Direct agencies to enforce sex discrimination law on the biological binary

Partially done

585 18. Department of Labor and Related Agencies

“Direct agencies to refocus enforcement of sex discrimination laws. The President should direct agencies to focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of “sex.””

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The Department of Labor rescinded, in its entirety and effective immediately, its 2022 interpretation of section 188 of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act — the guidance that read "because of … sex" in DOL's workforce-program anti-discrimination rules to include transgender status and gender identity on the authority of *Bostock*. This is the Chapter 18 agency carrying out the direction on its own enforcement, the first such documented step found on an allowlisted source.

  2. Attempted

    Executive Order 14168 defined "sex" as "an individual's immutable biological classification as either male or female" and, in section 3(b), ordered that "[e]ach agency and all Federal employees shall enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes," using those definitions when interpreting or applying any statute, regulation or guidance. Section 3(f) told the Attorney General to issue guidance correcting the application of *Bostock v. Clayton County* to sex-based distinctions. This is the direction the Mandate asks for; on the day it was signed nothing had yet been re-enforced.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Called partial, not done, on the playbook’s rule for open-ended “every agency” asks: a government-wide directive is attempted, directive plus a documented implementing action is partial, and done needs an allowlisted statement that the sweep is complete. No such statement was found, and the order’s own section 7 implementation reports are not public.
  • The Attorney General’s guidance under section 3(f), and the HHS sex-definition guidance under section 3(a), are both off the Federal Register. justice.gov and hhs.gov press pages either 403 or could not be located without guessing a URL, so neither is cited. Both are leads.
  • Litigation over Executive Order 14168 exists, but the reported injunctions reach sections 3(d) and 4 (identity documents, prison housing), not the section 3(b) enforcement direction, so no blocked event is recorded. If a court enjoins section 3(b) itself, add one.
Action
restrict
Object
Federal enforcement of sex discrimination laws
ID
1603