The Trump administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sided with a disgruntled employee who refused to use another employee’s desired gender pronouns.
The EEOC announced Sept. 30 it has reached a settlement with Generac Power Systems, a Wisconsin generator manufacturer, where a Baptist employee was fired for refusing to use the requested pronouns of a transgender employee.
Spencer Wimmer (via Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty)
According to a news release from Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, Spencer Wimmer was terminated in 2025 for noncompliance with the company’s policy on respecting the wishes of employees regarding their names and pronouns. Wimmer claimed his religious beliefs prevent him from doing that. The complaint filed with the EEOC contends Wimmer’s sincerely held religious beliefs should take precedence over another employee’s sincerely held beliefs about their own gender identity.
Evangelical Christians frequently refuse to acknowledge transgender identity as real. For example, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention does not recognize transgender identity and has a policy priority of opposing acceptance of transgender identity.
Wimmer is a member of Westside Baptist Church in Janesville, Wis., an independent Baptist congregation.
According to Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty: “When Mr. Wimmer told HR and his supervisor that his Christian faith prevented him from using the preferred names and pronouns of transgender employees and sought a religious accommodation to avoid the use of names and pronouns in the workplace, he was disciplined and his request was denied. Although no employee had ever launched any complaint against Mr. Wimmer, soon after the denial, Mr. Wimmer was fired and physically escorted off Generac’s premises.”
Under the Trump administration, the EEOC has been pursuing cases against a wide range of businesses for perceived persecution of evangelical Christians. This has included ruling against companies that required employees to get COVID vaccines.
In this case, the EEOC found probable cause that Generac violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “when it did not fully engage in the reasonable accommodation interactive process before denying a religious employee’s request to use biological sex-based pronouns when referring to a trans-identified employee, even after the religious employee informed Generac that using nonbiological pronouns went against his sincerely held religious beliefs.”
No mention is made in the EEOC statement about protecting the rights of transgender employees. The settlement was announced one day after the Trump administration’s Department of Education rolled back Title IX protections for transgender students.
Andrea Lucas
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas is a Trump appointee from 2020 whom he named chair of the commission last November.
“Consistent with Executive Order 14168, the EEOC will continue to prioritize for enforcement charges that involve protecting religious beliefs where an employee seeks to express the biological reality of sex in the workplace,” she said. “We commend Generac for resolving the matter promptly and strengthening its religious accommodation process.”
That executive order was one of dozens signed by Trump on his first day back in office in January 2025. It is titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
In that order Trump declared: “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
That same executive order is the basis for another EEOC settlement announced this week.
An unnamed Houston “health care provider specializing in pediatric care and services” agreed to pay $650,000 to resolve a charge involving an employee’s religious objection to performing work related to gender care.
In May 2026, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston separately reached a $10 million settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton regarding allegations of Medicaid billing for past youth gender-transition care, agreeing to cut ties with specific physicians and establish a controversial “detransition clinic.”
In the latest case, the EEOC claims the unnamed hospital failed to provide an employee with a religious accommodation “from providing minor patients with sex-rejecting medical procedures, including hormones, and related work duties.”
Related:
EEOC pursues more claims of workplace religious discrimination
EEOC pursues claim against Apple for religious accommodation
Trump EEOC claims more religious discrimination on vaccine mandates
Chick-fil-A franchise sued by EEOC for religious discrimination
Trump’s EEOC goes after another company that required vaccines
Trump’s EEOC targets businesses that required COVID vaccines