Federal Agencies Must Scrap Gender Identity, Redefine Sex as Only Biological Male/Female Under New Act

The “Truth in Gender Act of 2025” is a sweeping piece of legislation that mandates the entire federal government—from the Department of Homeland Security to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—must define “sex” strictly as a fixed biological classification determined at conception (male or female), explicitly excluding the concept of “gender identity” (Sec. 2). This means that for all official government purposes, policies, and records, the only recognized categories are biological male and biological female, defined by which reproductive cell they were conceived to produce. The bill’s core purpose is to enforce this binary definition across all federal operations and to actively remove any policies or funding related to what it terms “gender ideology.”

The Federal Paperwork Overhaul

If this bill becomes law, it triggers an immediate, massive overhaul of federal documents and employee records. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) gets 30 days to issue guidance telling every agency how to use these new, strict biological definitions (Sec. 3). For the average person, this impacts official identification: the State Department and Homeland Security must ensure all government-issued IDs accurately reflect the holder’s sex based on this biological definition. For federal employees, OPM must change all personnel records to list only the employee’s biological sex (Sec. 3). Essentially, any federal form or communication that currently acknowledges or asks about gender identity will have to be scrubbed and replaced with a binary “male” or “female” option, making it clear that the government will no longer recognize or track gender identity in official capacities.

Where Policy Hits the Pavement: Shelters and Prisons

This Act has significant consequences for intimate spaces and vulnerable populations. The Attorney General and Homeland Security are required to ensure that federal prisons and detention centers house individuals based strictly on their biological sex, meaning men cannot be housed in women’s facilities (Sec. 4). Furthermore, the bill takes aim at existing housing protections, requiring the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to create a new rule that specifically protects single-sex rape survivor shelters, while simultaneously getting rid of HUD’s previous “Equal Access” rule that accommodated gender identity (Sec. 4). This move directly limits access for transgender women to facilities that previously accommodated them, relying instead on the strict biological definition of sex for entry.

Cutting the Funding and Changing the Law

Perhaps the broadest provision is the mandate that every federal agency head must take “every legal step possible” to stop federal funding for anything that promotes “gender ideology” (Sec. 3). This is a highly subjective mandate that could affect a wide range of recipients, from academic researchers studying gender issues to public health programs that use inclusive language. On the legal front, the Attorney General is tasked with two major jobs: first, helping agencies protect sex-based distinctions under the law, and second, issuing guidance on how to stop misapplying the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County decision regarding sex-based distinctions (Sec. 3). This signals a clear intent to roll back previous interpretations that extended anti-discrimination protections to gender identity in employment.

The Accountability Catch

While the bill is aggressive in mandating changes across the federal government, it includes a critical catch in Section 7. This section explicitly states that the Act does not create any new legal right or benefit that a person can sue over. In plain English: if an agency fails to implement these changes correctly, or if an individual feels harmed by the new policies—for example, if their records are changed or they are denied access to a shelter—they generally cannot sue the government or its employees based on the authority of this Act alone. This lack of a “private right of action” significantly limits accountability and makes it harder for affected individuals to challenge the implementation of the law in court.