Is There a Federal Bathroom Ban? Yes.
Allison Chapman helps decode the Trump executive orders and their legal ramifications.
by Allison Chapman
UPDATE 1/29/2025: In a memo released late in the day on January 29, the US Office of Personnel and Budget Management instructed that all federal agencies institute a transgender bathroom ban in federal buildings no later than Friday, January 31st at 5PM ET. While this is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce on members of the general public it is going to require anyone who works in a federal building to decide if they want to keep their jobs, or go to the bathroom.
Here is the text of that memo:
On his first day back in office, Donald Trump signed a dog whistle laden executive order with the intent to defend “women from gender ideology extremism” and restore “biological truth to the federal government.” Since the order was signed there has been widespread confusion in the community over whether the order includes a bathroom ban for federal facilities, and if so who is being banned from where. The purpose of this piece is to fill in the gaps of what the order can do to change bathroom access in the US, and how.
This order attempts to erase transgender people in the eyes of the federal government. As noted by the Human Rights Campaign, “executive actions do NOT have the authority to override the United States Constitution, federal statutes, or established legal precedent”. What they can do is instruct federal agencies to focus on specific issues and topics, and help them interpret the law when it’s unclear.
The scope of the full order is vast and includes banning gender changes to passports, banning trans women from women’s prisons, and a federal re-definition of sex. However, one of the most confusing questions has been over what the order means for the legality of using a women’s or men’s bathroom bathroom. While the Executive Order doesn’t directly and explicitly address that concern, it does seem to suggest that its intention is that federal agencies ban transgender people from bathrooms matching their gender by using the phrase “single-sex spaces” in replacement of bathroom. This is typically used as a way to group locker rooms, changing rooms, bathrooms, and any other sex segregated space together under a single term.
This is further confirmed by the Human Rights Campaign who stated in a press release, “this could mean restricting access to restrooms for transgender and nonbinary people in federal offices, on military bases, and at national parks.” (Additionally, another Executive Order targeting transgender members of the military was signed and it explicitly stated “the Armed Forces shall neither allow males to use or share sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for females, nor allow females to use or share sleeping, changing, or bathing facilities designated for males.”)
An executive order alone cannot change things, however. To enact change it must be followed up by changes at relevant agencies. Unfortunately, we are already seeing federal agencies make changes. Yesterday, Equal Employment Opportunity Committee Chair Andrea Lucas announced that “It is neither harassment nor discrimination for a business to draw distinctions between the sexes in providing single-sex bathrooms or other similar facilities which implicate these significant privacy and safety interests” and “that one of her priorities—for compliance, investigations, and litigation—is to defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work.” This signals that the agency that typically is in charge of enforcing anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, and civil rights laws within workplaces is seeking to force businesses and organizations to ban transgender people from their bathrooms lest they get caught up in a lengthy and expensive litigation.
We are living in a state of terror and constant confusion based on the sheer number of changes happening on the federal level. No one has all of the answers and unfortunately that means we often have to just wait and see or have to operate with incomplete information. Though this may change, as of this writing we have not heard of any trans person being banned from using a bathroom at a federal facility due to this order. As of this writing, you who are reading this have not been banned from using appropriate restrooms on federal property in the US.
It’s incredibly important to not comply in advance with any executive order. Fascism relies on fear to control the populace, and while it’s incredibly scary the only way to win against the control of fascism is to not allow them to control you by fear. Make them enforce their immoral, unjust, and unconstitutional rules, or fail in the attempt.
Allison Chapman is a transgender legislative researcher focusing on LGBTQ+ legislation.