Trans Workers Describe a ‘Betrayal’ by an Agency Meant to Protect Them

When Asher Lucas’s co-workers started taunting him for being transgender, saying he was “born a girl and needed to be a girl,” he figured this type of bullying would not be tolerated at a well-known restaurant.

But after complaining to his manager, Mr. Lucas was fired along with three employees who spoke up on his behalf.

“This cannot be legal,” Mr. Lucas remembers thinking when his boss told him in a voice mail message that he was fired.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agreed with Mr. Lucas. In October, the agency sued his employer, Culver’s, in federal court in Michigan, saying the restaurant had engaged in unlawful employment practices by allowing co-workers to harass Mr. Lucas because “he is transgender and retaliating against those who opposed the harassment.”

But in the last several weeks, the E.E.O.C., the nation’s primary regulator focused on workplace discrimination, made an about-face in Mr. Lucas’s case and in several others involving transgender and nonbinary workers.

It moved to dismiss the case against Culver’s, arguing it could run afoul of President Trump’s executive order asserting that there are only two sexes, male and female.