Biden Signs Executive Order Enhancing LGBTQ Protections On Day 1

On his first day in workplace, President Joe Biden issued an government order strengthening anti-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ neighborhood, marking a fast turnaround from Trump administration coverage.

Under the brand new government steerage, federal companies are to imagine that legal guidelines forbidding discrimination apply to sexual orientation and gender id, not simply race, faith, intercourse and nationwide origin. The measure was a part of a slew of orders Biden signed shortly after his swearing-in, as each a substantive and a symbolic rebuke of the Trump period.

The order means that enforcement companies beneath Biden can be open to pursuing discrimination complaints on behalf of LGBTQ individuals in a method the Trump administration was not.

The Human Rights Campaign referred to as it “the most substantive, wide-ranging executive order concerning sexual orientation and gender identity” ever issued by a U.S. president.

“Today, millions of Americans can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that their President and their government believe discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is not only intolerable but illegal,” the advocacy group’s president, Alphonso David, mentioned in a press release.

The Supreme Court issued a landmark decision final June ruling that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects staff from discrimination associated to sexual orientation and gender id. But that ruling applies explicitly to discrimination within the office, whereas Biden’s government order makes clear the safeguards lengthen to different areas like housing and schooling.

In a reality sheet launched Wednesday, the Biden administration mentioned the brand new order will “build on” the protections cemented by the Supreme Court.

“All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation,” the White House mentioned in a press release.

The Trump administration had urged the Supreme Court to rule that homosexual and transgender staff weren’t lined by Title VII, and after the ruling got here down this previous summer time, the Trump administration tried to restrict its attain. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Justice Department’s civil rights division had recently issued a memo stating that the Bostock ruling, because it’s identified, shouldn’t be utilized to schooling and housing. The memo additionally argued that employers should still be allowed to discriminate towards LGBTQ staff by citing non secular beliefs. 

The government order issued Wednesday was one which LGBTQ advocates have been hoping to see immediately from the Biden administration. It ought to make clear that the federal authorities as an employer adopts the broader view of the Bostock determination as to what constitutes “sex discrimination” ― that it consists of discrimination primarily based on sexual orientation and gender id ― whereas making use of that interpretation to different legal guidelines just like the Affordable Care Act, the Fair Housing Act and different elements of the Civil Rights Act.

The earlier administration had peeled again related LGBTQ protections in different areas. Under then-President Donald Trump, the Department of Health and Human Services tried to scuttle an Obama-era regulation that forbade discrimination towards transgender individuals in well being care settings. As with the Bostock case, that measure was primarily based on the administration’s slender studying of “sex discrimination.” 

A federal decide blocked the HHS measure from shifting ahead final 12 months, ruling that it conflicted with the Bostock determination. The decide mentioned the administration had refused to do the “sensible” factor and “pause and reflect on the decision’s impact.” 

Trump additionally reinstated the “don’t ask, don’t tell” coverage on transgender individuals serving within the navy. Biden has vowed to rapidly finish that coverage, too. 

The Trump administration tried to undermine discrimination protections in smaller petty methods as nicely. In 2019, the Interior Department scrubbed the phrases “sexual orientation” from its information on office discrimination.