WASHINGTON , DC — The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws workplace discrimination between men and women but doesn't protect transgender people, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a memo released Thursday that reverses Obama-era guidance. The Justice Department will take that stance in "all pending and future matters," the memo said.

The Obama Justice Department viewed Title VII of the federal law as a ban on workplace discrimination against transgender people and said it would bring legal claims on their behalf. Sessions said that interpretation went beyond what Congress intended. Watch: DOJ Says Sex Discrimination Law Doesn't Apply To Transgender People

The interpretation is a "conclusion of law, not policy,"Sessions said, though the move shouldn't be taken to mean the department condones the mistreatment of transgender people. (For more information on transgender protections and other White House stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.) "The Justice Department must and will continue to affirm the dignity of all people, including transgender individuals," Sessions wrote in the memo to the nation's federal prosecutors.

But LGBT-rights advocates assailed the reversal as the latest in a series of Trump administration actions targeting their constituency. "Today marks another low point for a Department of Justice which has been cruelly consistent in its hostility towards the LGBT community and in particular its inability to treat transgender people with basic dignity and respect," said James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBT & HIV Project.

At present, there is no federal law explicitly prohibiting workplace discrimination against transgender people. But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has argued they are protected from workplace bias as a form of sex discrimination covered by the law.



The Wednesday memo, first reported by BuzzFeed News, is not the first time Sessions has reversed course in areas involving LGBT rights. The Justice Department under his leadership has also argued civil rights law does not protect employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation. And it intervened in a Supreme Court case on behalf of a Colorado baker who refused, based on his religious beliefs, to make a cake for a same-sex couple.

The Trump administration has also raised the possibility of banning transgender people from military service and has rescinded an Obama administration guideline advising schools to let transgender students use the bathroom of their choice. By SADIE GURMAN and DAVID CRARY, Associated Press