Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union, two organizations focused on protecting Americans’ constitutional rights, filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday in federal court challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s bathroom ban policies.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of LeAnne Withrow, a civilian employee of the Illinois National Guard, challenges the administration’s policy prohibiting transgender and intersex federal employees from using restrooms aligned with their gender. The policy claims that allowing trans people in bathrooms would “deprive [women assigned female at birth] of their dignity, safety, and well-being.”

The lawsuit responds to the executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office. It alleges that the order and its implementation violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in employment. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Title VII protects trans workers from discrimination based on sex.

Since its issuance, the executive order has faced widespread backlash from constitutional rights and LGBTQ advocacy groups for discriminating against trans and intersex people.

The lawsuit asserts that Withrow, along with numerous other trans and intersex federal employees, is forced to choose between performing her duties and being allowed to use the restroom safely.

“There is no credible evidence that allowing transgender people access to restrooms aligning with their gender identity jeopardizes the safety or privacy of non-transgender users,” the lawsuit states, directly challenging claims of safety risks.

Withrow detailed the daily impact of the policy in her statement included in the lawsuit.

“I want to help soldiers, families, veterans — and then I want to go home at the end of the day. At some point in between, I will probably need to use the bathroom,” she said.

The filing notes that Withrow takes extreme measures to avoid using the restroom, which the Cleveland Clinic reports most people need to use anywhere from 1–15 times per day depending on hydration.

“Ms. Withrow almost never eats breakfast, rarely eats lunch, and drinks less than the equivalent of one 17 oz. bottle of water at work on most days.”

In addition to withholding food and water, the policy subjects her to ongoing stress and fear:

“Ms. Withrow would feel unsafe, humiliated, and degraded using a men’s restroom … Individuals seeing her enter the men’s restroom might try to prevent her from doing so or physically harm her,” the lawsuit states. “The actions of defendants have caused Ms. Withrow to suffer physical and emotional distress and have limited her ability to effectively perform her job.”

“No one should have to choose between their career in service and their own dignity,” Withrow added. “I bring respect and honor to the work I do to support military families, and I hope the court will restore dignity to transgender people like me who serve this country every day.”

Withrow is a lead Military and Family Readiness Specialist and civilian employee of the Illinois National Guard. Previously, she served as a staff sergeant and has received multiple commendations, including the Illinois National Guard Abraham Lincoln Medal of Freedom.

The lawsuit cites the American Medical Association, the largest national association of physicians, which has stated that policies excluding trans individuals from facilities consistent with their gender identity have harmful effects on health, safety, and well-being.

“Policies excluding transgender individuals from facilities consistent with their gender identity have detrimental effects on the health, safety and well-being of those individuals,” the lawsuit states on page 32.

Advocates have condemned the policy since its signing in January and continue to push back against the administration. Leaders from ACLU-D.C., ACLU of Illinois, and Democracy Forward all provided comments on the lawsuit and the ongoing fight for trans rights.

“We cannot let the Trump administration target transgender people in the federal government or in public life,” said ACLU-D.C. Senior Staff Attorney Michael Perloff. “An executive order micromanaging which bathroom civil servants use is discrimination, plain and simple, and must be stopped.”

“It is absurd that in her home state of Illinois, LeAnne can use any other restroom consistent with her gender — other than the ones controlled by the federal government,” said Michelle Garcia, deputy legal director at the ACLU of Illinois. “The Trump administration’s reckless policies are discriminatory and must be reversed.”

“This policy is hateful bigotry aimed at denying hardworking federal employees their basic dignity simply because they are transgender,” said Kaitlyn Golden, senior counsel at Democracy Forward. “It is only because of brave individuals like LeAnne that we can push back against this injustice. Democracy Forward is honored to work with our partners in this case and is eager to defeat this insidious effort to discriminate against transgender federal workers.”

Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.

A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”

 “LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”

Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.

The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.

The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.

Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.

The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.

Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.

“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.

The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.

“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”

The Trump-Vance administration is moving forward with plans to restrict federal workers from using the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program if their work involves issues related to LGBTQ individuals, immigrants, or transgender children.

Lawsuits were filed last week in more than 20 cities — including Albuquerque, N.M., Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco — challenging the administration’s efforts to withhold loan forgiveness from organizations that oppose the president and his party’s political agenda.

Created by Congress in 2007 and signed into law by then-President George W. Bush, PSLF cancels the federal student loan debts of borrowers who spend a decade or more working in public service. The program covers teachers, nurses, law enforcement officers (including members of the military), and employees of tax-exempt organizations under Section 501(c)(3). Many of those who work to support LGBTQ rights are employed by such organizations — meaning they stand to lose eligibility under the new policy.

As of 2024, more than 1 million Americans have benefited from PSLF, helping erase an estimated $74 billion in student loan debt, according to a Biden-era estimate.

Under the new rule, which takes effect July 1, 2026, the Department of Education will be able to deny loan forgiveness to workers whose government or nonprofit employers engage in activities deemed to have a “substantial illegal purpose.” The power to define that term will rest not with the courts, but with the education secretary.

The rule grants the secretary authority to exclude groups from the program if they participate in activities such as trafficking, illegal immigration, or what it calls the “chemical castration” of children — defined as the use of hormone therapy or puberty-blocking drugs, a form of gender-affirming care sometimes provided to transgender children and teens.

Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent defended the change, arguing that the new rule would better serve the American people, despite every major American physician organization research showing gender-affirming care helps more than it harms.

“It is unconscionable that the plaintiffs are standing up for criminal activity,” Kent said in a statement to NPR. “This is a commonsense reform that will stop taxpayer dollars from subsidizing organizations involved in terrorism, child trafficking, and transgender procedures that are doing irreversible harm to children.”

The Williams Institute, a leading research center on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, warned that this — along with other restrictions on federal loan forgiveness — would disproportionately harm LGBTQ Americans. The institute found that more than one-third (35%) of LGBTQ adults aged 18 to 40 — an estimated 2.9 million people — hold over $93.2 billion in federal student loans. About half (51%) of transgender adults, 36% of cisgender LBQ women, and 28% of cisgender GBQ men have federal student loans.

“The proposed restrictions on student loans will particularly affect the nearly one-quarter of LGBTQ adults employed in the public or nonprofit sectors, which qualify for the Public Student Loan Forgiveness program,” said Brad Sears, Distinguished Senior Scholar of Law and Policy at the Williams Institute, who authored a brief on how the proposed changes could impact LGBTQ borrowers. “A recent executive order could potentially disqualify anyone working for an organization involved in gender-affirming care, or possibly those serving transgender individuals more broadly, from the PSLF program.”