EXCLUSIVE: HHS Gender Guidance ‘Denies Science, Compels Speech,’ GOP Lawmakers Allege

Republican lawmakers are demanding that Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra rescind guidance requiring agency employees to use preferred pronouns and names and allowing men to use women’s spaces, including locker rooms and lactation rooms.

“This Guidance denies science, compels speech, jeopardizes the ability of federal employees to practice their faith without fear of retaliation, endangers women, and further erodes the American people’s trust in public institutions,” the lawmakers said in a Thursday letter, first obtained by The Daily Wire. “We urge you to reverse course and rescind this Guidance.”

The letter is led by Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford and signed by Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Steve Daines of Montana, and James Risch of Idaho.

The HHS guidance states that failure to use preferred names and pronouns “contribute[s] to an unlawful hostile work environment,” the lawmakers point out in the letter to Becerra. It also states that HHS cannot “require a legal change of name or gender marker, medical certification, or other documentation,” allowing anyone to change their name or pronouns and compel their colleagues to use that name or pronoun — or face disciplinary action.

“There is no mention anywhere in the Guidance about accommodations for those with religious or conscience objections to the compelled use of incorrect pronouns,” the letter says. “In addition to violating extremely clear, long-standing Supreme Court precedents on compelled speech, reaffirmed as recently as 303 Creative v Elenis, this also violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“In forcing employees to choose between deeply held religious beliefs or losing their job, HHS is creating a hostile work environment for employees,” the Republicans said.

Additionally, the HHS guidance promises that the agency will “ensure there are no barriers to equally accessing restrooms, locker rooms, lactation rooms, or other personal care spaces,” stating: “HHS will not condition this access on an employee having undergone or providing proof of gender-affirming surgeries or other medical procedures.”

If any HHS female employees are uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a bathroom, locker room, or lactation room with a biological man who identifies as a woman, they would be told to use other facilities, since “employees will not be barred from using the restroom consistent with their gender identity.”

“Given the Guidance’s stipulation on not requiring any evidence of gender dysphoria or gender transition procedures, women could be forced to be exposed to fully male anatomy in the bathroom or in the locker room,” the lawmakers told Becerra. “This creates a hostile work environment for women who may have no other option than using the facilities at work.”

“A female employee who has used a women’s restroom for more than a decade will be told that she has to find a new option for a restroom if she is uncomfortable with a biological male in her restroom,” they added. “Women deserve better. Including lactation rooms in this same Guidance is blatantly offensive – males cannot breastfeed their children, and claiming to be female does not change that reality. The only reason for including this in the Guidance is to continue to push a radical agenda in every facet of the federal workplace.”

The lawmakers also note that HHS, in their promotion of such ideology, reveals a “denial of science” and “incorporation of that denial into the hiring, firing, and promotion process” that raises questions about the “work and research being done through HHS.”

“Gender is not, as the Guidance erroneously asserts, ‘a social construct of identities, norms, behaviors, and roles that vary between societies over time,'” they wrote. “There are only two sexes: male and female. Research by the HHS at taxpayer expense should not be done in contravention of that scientific and self-evident fact.”

Becerra and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Read the full letter here.