The Department of Commerce removed sexual and gender orientation from its list of people protected in its annual equal opportunity statement released Thursday.
“The Department of Commerce does not tolerate behavior, harassment, discrimination or prejudice based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability,” the statement reads.
In 2016, the statement included sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as more specific qualifiers for some of the other categories.
“The Department of Commerce does not tolerate discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination), sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age (40 years of age and over), genetic information, or disability (physical or mental), including the provision of reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants and employees with disabilities or genetic information,” the 2016 statement said.
The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled discrimination based on gender identity as illegal in 2012 and also ruled discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal in 2015. The statement does not affect these ruling, but it did raise concerns among rights groups.
“It is careless bad government,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told BuzzFeed. “Trans employees are still absolutely covered by sex discrimination laws and sex is listed there. So even if the Trump administration doesn’t want to enforce federal civil rights laws we’re not going to let them get away with that.”
