Federal agencies ordered to implement transgender bathroom ban

The Trump administration is ordering federal agencies to bar transgender workers from single-sex facilities that match their gender identity by Friday and fire any employees working on “gender ideology,” part of a sweeping new directive meant to comply with an executive order that the government recognize only two sexes. 

A memo sent Wednesday by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to department heads instructs them to review and terminate programs, contracts, grants and outward-facing media that “promote or inculcate gender ideology,” which the administration has broadly defined as “an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity.” 

According to the Wednesday memo obtained by The Hill, federal agency heads should place employees whose job description involves “promoting gender ideology” on immediate paid leave by 5 p.m. EST Friday and close offices and programs that support the concept that gender is disconnected from sex and exists on a spectrum. 

The order calls for the cancellation of training and employee resource groups that have in the past “promoted gender ideology” and directs agency heads to ensure policies, documents and forms use the term “sex,” not “gender.” “Intimate spaces” such as bathrooms, the memo says, should be “designated by biological sex and not gender identity.” 

Agency heads have until Feb. 7 at noon to report their implementation progress, according to the memo. 

The OPM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Wednesday’s memo outlines the administration’s next steps in enforcing a Jan. 20 executive order from President Trump declaring the federal government will recognize only two sexes, male and female, which “are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” 

The order, which pledges to protect women and restore “biological truth to the federal government,” requires federal agencies and employees to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes.” 

“Agencies shall take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology,” according to the order, which Trump signed during his first hours in office. 

The shift in the bathroom policy echoes a battle recently waged by House Republicans, who similarly sought to bar Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the only transgender member of Congress, from using the women’s bathroom. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in November announced a new policy, which he renewed earlier this month, preventing transgender people from using restrooms at the Capitol that best align with their gender identity. 

A proposal introduced late last year by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) would have banned trans people from bathrooms on federal property, including museums and national parks. 

Trump this week signed three more executive orders targeting transgender rights, including one meant to broadly restrict access to gender-affirming care for minors. An order issued Wednesday aims to defund public schools that teach critical race theory or “radical gender ideology,” and another seeks to bar transgender people from serving openly in the military. 

OPM has issued a series of controversial memos in recent days, including a buyout issued to the bulk of the country's 2 million federal workers.