By Nicole Weatherholtz | Wednesday, 29 April 2026 04:49 PM EDT
The State Department is implementing President Donald Trump’s directive requiring that restrooms and other private facilities be designated based on biological sex, according to a memo.
The memo, issued last week, makes clear the agency is following Trump’s executive order aimed at preserving sex-segregated spaces across federal facilities.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and long-standing basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” said Tommy Pigott, State Department principal deputy spokesman.
“In line with President Trump’s executive order, the memo provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
The directive is explicit in its instructions to agency personnel: “ACTION: Post must abide by the President’s directive in E.O. 14168, ensuring intimate spaces are designated by biological sex.”
Trump signed the executive order on the first day of his second term, directing federal agencies to ensure private spaces such as restrooms, locker rooms, and similar facilities are designated according to biological sex. That policy direction was reinforced last summer when the Office of Personnel Management issued guidance stating that federal bathrooms, locker rooms, and lactation rooms must follow biological sex designations.
Further backing came on February 26, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concluded that “under Title VII, federal agency employers may lawfully exclude men from the women’s bathroom, and women from the men’s bathroom.” The decision reversed a 2015 Obama-era EEOC ruling that had required agencies to allow employees who identify as transgender to use facilities aligned with their “gender identity.”
“When it comes to bathrooms, male and female employees are not similarly situated,” said EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas in a statement at the time. “Biology is not bigotry.”
The State Department memo notes that single-occupancy restrooms are not affected by the new policy.
