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Source: Fisher Phillips, April 23, 2025

According to recent administrative documents filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), this year’s collection of EEO-1 reports will begin in less than a month – and will not allow employers to categorize workers as “non-binary.” Private employers with at least 100 employees and federal contractors with at least 50 employees should prepare to sort company data by employee job category, as well as by sex and race/ethnicity, to turn over to the EEOC between May 20 and June 24. While these dates are not yet set in stone, they provide a glimpse into how we can expect this year’s EEO-1 reporting season to go.

Non-Binary Reporting Has Been Permitted For Past 6 Years

Since 2019, the EEOC has guided employers on best practices for filling out their EEO-1 reports and categorizing non-binary employees – those who choose not to identify as male or female. Starting with that year’s filing, employers were permitted to add additional information in a comment dialogue box on the electronic EEO-1 report portal to explain if any workers identified as non-binary.

Trump Executive Order Signaled End to That Practice

But the writing appeared to be on the wall soon after the Trump administration took over. Within hours after Trump took office, he issued an executive order mandating that the federal government recognize only two biological sexes, male and female. We predicted at that time that this would mean a change for the EEO-1 form – and that’s what is about to come to fruition.

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