Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, 8615-8618 [2025-02090]
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Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 19 / Thursday, January 30, 2025 / Presidential Documents
8615
Presidential Documents
Executive Order 14168 of January 20, 2025
Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America, including section 7301 of title 5,
United States Code, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological
reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means
to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate singlesex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse
shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate
the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them
of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language
and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity
of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical
to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against
the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and
scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an
internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts.
Invalidating the true and biological category of ‘‘woman’’ improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into
laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished
legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect
freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies
that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically
male.
Sec. 2. Policy and Definitions. It is the policy of the United States to
recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and
are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote
this reality, and the following definitions shall govern all Executive interpretation of and application of Federal law and administration policy:
(a) ‘‘Sex’’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification
as either male or female. ‘‘Sex’’ is not a synonym for and does not include
the concept of ‘‘gender identity.’’
(b) ‘‘Women’’ or ‘‘woman’’ and ‘‘girls’’ or ‘‘girl’’ shall mean adult and
juvenile human females, respectively.
lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with FR_PREZDOC13
(c) ‘‘Men’’ or ‘‘man’’ and ‘‘boys’’ or ‘‘boy’’ shall mean adult and juvenile
human males, respectively.
(d) ‘‘Female’’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that
produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) ‘‘Male’’ means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.
(f) ‘‘Gender ideology’’ replaces the biological category of sex with an
ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false
claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa,
and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true.
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Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders
that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but
nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the
wrong sexed body.
(g) ‘‘Gender identity’’ reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of
self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite
continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and
cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.
Sec. 3. Recognizing Women Are Biologically Distinct From Men. (a) Within
30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Health and Human
Services shall provide to the U.S. Government, external partners, and the
public clear guidance expanding on the sex-based definitions set forth in
this order.
(b) Each agency and all Federal employees shall enforce laws governing
sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect
men and women as biologically distinct sexes. Each agency should therefore
give the terms ‘‘sex’’, ‘‘male’’, ‘‘female’’, ‘‘men’’, ‘‘women’’, ‘‘boys’’ and ‘‘girls’’
the meanings set forth in section 2 of this order when interpreting or
applying statutes, regulations, or guidance and in all other official agency
business, documents, and communications.
(c) When administering or enforcing sex-based distinctions, every agency
and all Federal employees acting in an official capacity on behalf of their
agency shall use the term ‘‘sex’’ and not ‘‘gender’’ in all applicable Federal
policies and documents.
(d) The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, and the Director
of the Office of Personnel Management, shall implement changes to require
that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas,
and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex, as defined under
section 2 of this order; and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall ensure that applicable personnel records accurately report Federal
employees’ sex, as defined by section 2 of this order.
(e) Agencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements,
policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages. Agency forms
that require an individual’s sex shall list male or female, and shall not
request gender identity. Agencies shall take all necessary steps, as permitted
by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology.
lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with FR_PREZDOC13
(f) The prior Administration argued that the Supreme Court’s decision
in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which addressed Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, requires gender identity-based access to singlesex spaces under, for example, Title IX of the Educational Amendments
Act. This position is legally untenable and has harmed women. The Attorney
General shall therefore immediately issue guidance to agencies to correct
the misapplication of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton
County (2020) to sex-based distinctions in agency activities. In addition,
the Attorney General shall issue guidance and assist agencies in protecting
sex-based distinctions, which are explicitly permitted under Constitutional
and statutory precedent.
(g) Federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology. Each
agency shall assess grant conditions and grantee preferences and ensure
grant funds do not promote gender ideology.
Sec. 4. Privacy in Intimate Spaces. (a) The Attorney General and Secretary
of Homeland Security shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s
prisons or housed in women’s detention centers, including through amendment, as necessary, of Part 115.41 of title 28, Code of Federal Regulations
and interpretation guidance regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 19 / Thursday, January 30, 2025 / Presidential Documents
8617
(b) The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall prepare and
submit for notice and comment rulemaking a policy to rescind the final
rule entitled ‘‘Equal Access in Accordance with an Individual’s Gender
Identity in Community Planning and Development Programs’’ of September
21, 2016, 81 FR 64763, and shall submit for public comment a policy
protecting women seeking single-sex rape shelters.
(c) The Attorney General shall ensure that the Bureau of Prisons revises
its policies concerning medical care to be consistent with this order, and
shall ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure,
treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance
to that of the opposite sex.
(d) Agencies shall effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to
ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or
for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.
Sec. 5. Protecting Rights. The Attorney General shall issue guidance to
ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex and the right to
single-sex spaces in workplaces and federally funded entities covered by
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In accordance with that guidance, the Attorney
General, the Secretary of Labor, the General Counsel and Chair of the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission, and each other agency head with
enforcement responsibilities under the Civil Rights Act shall prioritize investigations and litigation to enforce the rights and freedoms identified.
Sec. 6. Bill Text. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Assistant
to the President for Legislative Affairs shall present to the President proposed
bill text to codify the definitions in this order.
Sec. 7. Agency Implementation and Reporting. (a) Within 120 days of the
date of this order, each agency head shall submit an update on implementation of this order to the President, through the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget. That update shall address:
(i) changes to agency documents, including regulations, guidance, forms,
and communications, made to comply with this order; and
(ii) agency-imposed requirements on federally funded entities, including
contractors, to achieve the policy of this order.
(b) The requirements of this order supersede conflicting provisions in
any previous Executive Orders or Presidential Memoranda, including but
not limited to Executive Orders 13988 of January 20, 2021, 14004 of January
25, 2021, 14020 and 14021 of March 8, 2021, and 14075 of June 15, 2022.
These Executive Orders are hereby rescinded, and the White House Gender
Policy Council established by Executive Order 14020 is dissolved.
(c) Each agency head shall promptly rescind all guidance documents inconsistent with the requirements of this order or the Attorney General’s guidance
issued pursuant to this order, or rescind such parts of such documents
that are inconsistent in such manner. Such documents include, but are
not limited to:
(i) ‘‘The White House Toolkit on Transgender Equality’’;
(ii) the Department of Education’s guidance documents including:
(A) ‘‘2024 Title IX Regulations: Pointers for Implementation’’ (July 2024);
lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with FR_PREZDOC13
(B) ‘‘U.S. Department of Education Toolkit: Creating Inclusive and Nondiscriminatory School Environments for LGBTQI+ Students’’;
(C) ‘‘U.S. Department of Education Supporting LGBTQI+ Youth and
Families in School’’ (June 21, 2023);
(D) ‘‘Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. Apoyar a los jóvenes y
familias LGBTQI+ en la escuela’’ (June 21, 2023);
(E) ‘‘Supporting Intersex Students: A Resource for Students, Families,
and Educators’’ (October 2021);
(F) ‘‘Supporting Transgender Youth in School’’ (June 2021);
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(G) ‘‘Letter to Educators on Title IX’s 49th Anniversary’’ (June 23, 2021);
(H) ‘‘Confronting Anti-LGBTQI+ Harassment in Schools: A Resource
for Students and Families’’ (June 2021);
(I) ‘‘Enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
With Respect to Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender
Identity in Light of Bostock v. Clayton County’’ (June 22, 2021);
(J) ‘‘Education in a Pandemic: The Disparate Impacts of COVID–19 on
America’s Students’’ (June 9, 2021); and
(K) ‘‘Back-to-School Message for Transgender Students from the U.S.
Depts of Justice, Education, and HHS’’ (Aug. 17, 2021);
(iii) the Attorney General’s Memorandum of March 26, 2021 entitled ‘‘Application of Bostock v. Clayton County to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972’’; and
(iv) the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ‘‘Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace’’ (April 29, 2024).
Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed
to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency,
or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and
subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit,
substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party
against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers,
employees, or agents, or any other person.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 20, 2025.
[FR Doc. 2025–02090
Filed 1–29–25; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3395–F4–P
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(d) If any provision of this order, or the application of any provision
to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of
this order and the application of its provisions to any other persons or
circumstances shall not be affected thereby.
Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 19 (Thursday, January 30, 2025)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 8615-8618]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2025-02090]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 90 , No. 19 / Thursday, January 30, 2025 /
Presidential Documents
[[Page 8615]]
Executive Order 14168 of January 20, 2025
Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism
and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal
Government
By the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States of
America, including section 7301 of title 5, United
States Code, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who
deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly
used legal and other socially coercive means to permit
men to self-identify as women and gain access to
intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for
women, from women's domestic abuse shelters to women's
workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate
the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack
women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and
well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy
has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the
validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal
policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry,
public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and
purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding
use and understanding of biological and scientific
terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of
sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of
self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the
true and biological category of ``woman'' improperly
transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-
based opportunities into laws and policies that
undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal
rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate
social concept.
Accordingly, my Administration will defend women's
rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear
and accurate language and policies that recognize women
are biologically female, and men are biologically male.
Sec. 2. Policy and Definitions. It is the policy of the
United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.
These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in
fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my
direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-
protective laws to promote this reality, and the
following definitions shall govern all Executive
interpretation of and application of Federal law and
administration policy:
(a) ``Sex'' shall refer to an individual's
immutable biological classification as either male or
female. ``Sex'' is not a synonym for and does not
include the concept of ``gender identity.''
(b) ``Women'' or ``woman'' and ``girls'' or
``girl'' shall mean adult and juvenile human females,
respectively.
(c) ``Men'' or ``man'' and ``boys'' or ``boy''
shall mean adult and juvenile human males,
respectively.
(d) ``Female'' means a person belonging, at
conception, to the sex that produces the large
reproductive cell.
(e) ``Male'' means a person belonging, at
conception, to the sex that produces the small
reproductive cell.
(f) ``Gender ideology'' replaces the biological
category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-
assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim
that males can identify as and thus become women and
vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society
to regard this false claim as true.
[[Page 8616]]
Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast
spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one's
sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in
that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful
category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible
for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.
(g) ``Gender identity'' reflects a fully internal
and subjective sense of self, disconnected from
biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite
continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for
identification and cannot be recognized as a
replacement for sex.
Sec. 3. Recognizing Women Are Biologically Distinct
From Men. (a) Within 30 days of the date of this order,
the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall
provide to the U.S. Government, external partners, and
the public clear guidance expanding on the sex-based
definitions set forth in this order.
(b) Each agency and all Federal employees shall
enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections,
opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and
women as biologically distinct sexes. Each agency
should therefore give the terms ``sex'', ``male'',
``female'', ``men'', ``women'', ``boys'' and ``girls''
the meanings set forth in section 2 of this order when
interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, or
guidance and in all other official agency business,
documents, and communications.
(c) When administering or enforcing sex-based
distinctions, every agency and all Federal employees
acting in an official capacity on behalf of their
agency shall use the term ``sex'' and not ``gender'' in
all applicable Federal policies and documents.
(d) The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security,
and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management,
shall implement changes to require that government-
issued identification documents, including passports,
visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the
holder's sex, as defined under section 2 of this order;
and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management
shall ensure that applicable personnel records
accurately report Federal employees' sex, as defined by
section 2 of this order.
(e) Agencies shall remove all statements, policies,
regulations, forms, communications, or other internal
and external messages that promote or otherwise
inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such
statements, policies, regulations, forms,
communications or other messages. Agency forms that
require an individual's sex shall list male or female,
and shall not request gender identity. Agencies shall
take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end
the Federal funding of gender ideology.
(f) The prior Administration argued that the
Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County
(2020), which addressed Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, requires gender identity-based access to
single-sex spaces under, for example, Title IX of the
Educational Amendments Act. This position is legally
untenable and has harmed women. The Attorney General
shall therefore immediately issue guidance to agencies
to correct the misapplication of the Supreme Court's
decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) to sex-
based distinctions in agency activities. In addition,
the Attorney General shall issue guidance and assist
agencies in protecting sex-based distinctions, which
are explicitly permitted under Constitutional and
statutory precedent.
(g) Federal funds shall not be used to promote
gender ideology. Each agency shall assess grant
conditions and grantee preferences and ensure grant
funds do not promote gender ideology.
Sec. 4. Privacy in Intimate Spaces. (a) The Attorney
General and Secretary of Homeland Security shall ensure
that males are not detained in women's prisons or
housed in women's detention centers, including through
amendment, as necessary, of Part 115.41 of title 28,
Code of Federal Regulations and interpretation guidance
regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act.
[[Page 8617]]
(b) The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
shall prepare and submit for notice and comment
rulemaking a policy to rescind the final rule entitled
``Equal Access in Accordance with an Individual's
Gender Identity in Community Planning and Development
Programs'' of September 21, 2016, 81 FR 64763, and
shall submit for public comment a policy protecting
women seeking single-sex rape shelters.
(c) The Attorney General shall ensure that the
Bureau of Prisons revises its policies concerning
medical care to be consistent with this order, and
shall ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any
medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose
of conforming an inmate's appearance to that of the
opposite sex.
(d) Agencies shall effectuate this policy by taking
appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces
designated for women, girls, or females (or for men,
boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.
Sec. 5. Protecting Rights. The Attorney General shall
issue guidance to ensure the freedom to express the
binary nature of sex and the right to single-sex spaces
in workplaces and federally funded entities covered by
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In accordance with that
guidance, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Labor,
the General Counsel and Chair of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, and each other agency head with
enforcement responsibilities under the Civil Rights Act
shall prioritize investigations and litigation to
enforce the rights and freedoms identified.
Sec. 6. Bill Text. Within 30 days of the date of this
order, the Assistant to the President for Legislative
Affairs shall present to the President proposed bill
text to codify the definitions in this order.
Sec. 7. Agency Implementation and Reporting. (a) Within
120 days of the date of this order, each agency head
shall submit an update on implementation of this order
to the President, through the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget. That update shall address:
(i) changes to agency documents, including regulations, guidance, forms,
and communications, made to comply with this order; and
(ii) agency-imposed requirements on federally funded entities, including
contractors, to achieve the policy of this order.
(b) The requirements of this order supersede
conflicting provisions in any previous Executive Orders
or Presidential Memoranda, including but not limited to
Executive Orders 13988 of January 20, 2021, 14004 of
January 25, 2021, 14020 and 14021 of March 8, 2021, and
14075 of June 15, 2022. These Executive Orders are
hereby rescinded, and the White House Gender Policy
Council established by Executive Order 14020 is
dissolved.
(c) Each agency head shall promptly rescind all
guidance documents inconsistent with the requirements
of this order or the Attorney General's guidance issued
pursuant to this order, or rescind such parts of such
documents that are inconsistent in such manner. Such
documents include, but are not limited to:
(i) ``The White House Toolkit on Transgender Equality'';
(ii) the Department of Education's guidance documents including:
(A) ``2024 Title IX Regulations: Pointers for Implementation'' (July
2024);
(B) ``U.S. Department of Education Toolkit: Creating Inclusive and
Nondiscriminatory School Environments for LGBTQI+ Students'';
(C) ``U.S. Department of Education Supporting LGBTQI+ Youth and Families
in School'' (June 21, 2023);
(D) ``Departamento de Educaci[oacute]n de EE.UU. Apoyar a los
j[oacute]venes y familias LGBTQI+ en la escuela'' (June 21, 2023);
(E) ``Supporting Intersex Students: A Resource for Students, Families,
and Educators'' (October 2021);
(F) ``Supporting Transgender Youth in School'' (June 2021);
[[Page 8618]]
(G) ``Letter to Educators on Title IX's 49th Anniversary'' (June 23,
2021);
(H) ``Confronting Anti-LGBTQI+ Harassment in Schools: A Resource for
Students and Families'' (June 2021);
(I) ``Enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 With
Respect to Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
in Light of Bostock v. Clayton County'' (June 22, 2021);
(J) ``Education in a Pandemic: The Disparate Impacts of COVID-19 on
America's Students'' (June 9, 2021); and
(K) ``Back-to-School Message for Transgender Students from the U.S. Depts
of Justice, Education, and HHS'' (Aug. 17, 2021);
(iii) the Attorney General's Memorandum of March 26, 2021 entitled
``Application of Bostock v. Clayton County to Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972''; and
(iv) the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's ``Enforcement Guidance
on Harassment in the Workplace'' (April 29, 2024).
Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order
shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or
the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with
applicable law and subject to the availability of
appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not,
create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity by any party against
the United States, its departments, agencies, or
entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any
other person.
(d) If any provision of this order, or the
application of any provision to any person or
circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of
this order and the application of its provisions to any
other persons or circumstances shall not be affected
thereby.
(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 20, 2025.
[FR Doc. 2025-02090
Filed 1-29-25; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3395-F4-P