The Customer Non-Discrimination Act amends Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sex—expressly including sexual orientation and gender identity—as well as race, color, religion, and national origin. It broadens the statutory list of covered places to include a wide array of modern goods, services, programs, and transportation providers, expressly calling out online retailers, banks, salons, health-care and legal service providers, food banks, shelters, and travel and funeral services.
The bill adds detailed definitions and rules (including a statutory definition of gender identity and an expanded definition of "sex" that encompasses pregnancy, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics) and removes Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) defenses in claims under the amended Title II. For practitioners and compliance officers, the Act significantly enlarges the universe of entities that must evaluate customer-facing policies, restroom and locker-room access rules, and staff training for nondiscrimination, while shifting litigation dynamics by narrowing available federal religious‑liberty defenses in public‑accommodations cases.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill amends 42 U.S.C. 2000a and 2000a–1 to add sex (explicitly including sexual orientation and gender identity) to protected categories and expands the statutory definition of a public accommodation to cover many modern and non‑physical providers, including online services and transportation. It creates new statutory definitions for gender identity and sex and adds rules on facility access; it also bars RFRA claims or defenses against enforcement of these provisions.
Who It Affects
Retailers, banks, health‑care and legal service providers, salons, funeral homes, food banks, shelters, travel and transportation providers, and online platforms that offer goods or services and whose operations affect commerce. Civil‑rights litigants, state attorneys general, and courts will also see litigation and enforcement implications.
Why It Matters
The statute brings historically state‑level or sectoral disputes—like restroom access, online refusal of service, and provider refusal on religious grounds—squarely under an amended federal public‑accommodations regime. That expansion changes compliance risk for a wide range of customer‑facing entities and limits a common federal religious‑liberty defense in these cases.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill rewrites Title II of the Civil Rights Act to reflect how commerce and customer interactions look in 2026. Instead of a short list of physical venues, the statute’s definition of public accommodation becomes a catchment that reaches stores, online retailers and service providers, banks, salons, health‑care and legal providers, shelters, travel and funeral services, and a broad set of transportation services.
By saying an "establishment" is not limited to a physical facility and may include anyone whose operations affect commerce, the bill targets modern providers that previously argued they were outside Title II because they operate online or via networks.
On protected classes, the bill inserts "sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)" into the statute’s core prohibition and then supplies granular definitions. "Sex" is expressly broadened to include sex stereotypes, pregnancy and related conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics such as intersex traits. The bill defines "gender identity" by reference to a person’s gender‑related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or other gender‑related characteristics regardless of birth designation, and then creates a specific rule that an individual may not be denied access to a shared facility—restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms—consistent with their gender identity.The bill also addresses legal mechanics.
It preserves other federal causes of action and remedies (calling out 42 U.S.C. 1983 and 1985) so plaintiffs can pursue multiple federal theories, but it strips RFRA away as a claim or defense in enforcing these Title II provisions. That combination signals Congress’s intent both to expand substantive protections and to limit a federal statutory route commonly used to justify religiously grounded refusals of service.
Practically, compliance will mean revising written nondiscrimination policies, training front‑line staff on access to shared facilities, auditing online terms of service and algorithms that affect access, and preparing for litigation without RFRA as a defense.Because the bill uses broad language—"including, but not limited to"—the precise perimeter of regulated activity will be litigated. The drafters anticipate courts will resolve questions about small or informal sellers, membership organizations, and religiously affiliated providers; until then, covered entities should plan under the assumption they may face Title II scrutiny.
The bill also does not add an express exemption for religious organizations or spell out agency enforcement priorities, leaving those implementation choices to litigation and administrative action.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill amends 42 U.S.C. 2000a and 2000a–1 to add "sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)" as a protected characteristic in Title II’s public‑accommodations prohibition.
It expands the statutory list of public accommodations to expressly include online retailers and service providers, banks, salons, health‑care and legal services, food banks, shelters, travel agencies, funeral parlors, and transportation providers and services.
The statute defines "gender identity" and requires that individuals not be denied access to shared facilities (restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms) consistent with their gender identity.
The bill clarifies that "sex" includes sex stereotypes, pregnancy and related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics (including intersex traits).
Section 210 removes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a claim or defense in enforcing the amended Title II, narrowing a common federal religious‑liberty defense in public‑accommodations cases.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short title
Provides the Act’s short name, the "Customer Non‑Discrimination Act," for citation. This is standard drafting but flags congressional intent that the statute governs customer interactions broadly.
Adds sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity) and enlarges public‑accommodation examples
Subsection (a) inserts "sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)" into the list of protected characteristics under the existing Title II prohibition. Subsection (b) rewrites the list of covered places in 201(b), removing narrow terms like "stadium" and inserting a modern, expansive catalog that includes non‑physical providers. Practically, this turns Title II from a venue‑centric statute into one that reaches many market actors that supply goods, services, programs, or transportation and that engage in interstate commerce.
Extends nondiscrimination language under the law
The bill adds sex (with the same inclusive clause) to Section 202’s prohibition, ensuring the nondiscrimination requirement applies to other statutory or regulatory contexts in Title II. This removes ambiguity about whether separate Title II provisions cover sex‑based discrimination and aligns the statute so enforcement can proceed consistently across its subsections.
Definitions for protected characteristics and construction rules
This section defines race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), and national origin to include associative and perceived characteristics, closing a potential loophole for claims based on association or perception. It defines gender identity by reference to gender‑related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or other characteristics and explicitly broadens "sex" to cover pregnancy, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics (intersex). The practical effect is to supply courts and defendants with statutory language they must use when assessing discrimination claims.
Rules of construction preserving remedies and clarifying scope
Section 209(a) says the Act does not limit other claims or remedies, specifically calling out 42 U.S.C. 1983 and 1985, which keeps open civil‑rights litigation pathways beyond Title II alone. Subsection (b) prevents the statute from being read to narrow protections for pregnancy or other sex‑related conditions. Subsection (c) clarifies that an "establishment" covers anyone whose operations affect commerce and is not limited to a physical place — language that will be central in litigation over online platforms, gig providers, and remote or distributed businesses.
RFRA disqualification for Title II claims and defenses
Section 210 bars the Religious Freedom Restoration Act from being used as a claim or a defense against the Act’s Title II provisions. That is a blunt statutory choice: entities asserting religious objections to serving certain customers cannot invoke RFRA in defense of actions under the amended public‑accommodations law. This will likely shift litigation toward First Amendment and other constitutional arguments and may invite direct challenges over RFRA’s scope.
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Explore Civil Rights in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- People who are LGBTQ—particularly transgender and nonbinary individuals—who gain an express federal statutory right against denial of access to goods, services, programs, and shared facilities consistent with their gender identity.
- Pregnant and postpartum people, who benefit from the bill’s explicit inclusion of pregnancy and related medical conditions in the statutory definition of "sex," narrowing the ability of providers to treat pregnancy differently than other medical conditions.
- Users of online platforms and remote service providers, because the bill’s non‑physical definition of an "establishment" brings many digital sellers and service operators within Title II’s reach and offers a federal remedy for refusals of service online.
Who Bears the Cost
- Small customer‑facing businesses and sole practitioners (salons, independent retailers, small clinics) that must update policies, retrain staff on facility access rules, and potentially defend against claims even if they believed Title II did not cover them before the amendment.
- Religiously affiliated providers and organizations that previously relied on RFRA to defend refusals of service, who now face the loss of that statutory defense in Title II cases and may incur litigation costs to assert alternative defenses.
- Courts, state attorneys general, and civil‑rights enforcement agencies that will likely see an uptick in complex litigation and administrative complaints as parties test the scope of "establishment," shared‑facility rules, and the interaction of Title II with other federal and state laws.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits two legitimate policy objectives against each other: ensuring equal, practical access to goods and services for people on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, versus protecting the ability of religiously motivated providers and certain small or specialized businesses to act according to conscience or to limit who they serve. Resolving that conflict requires drawing bright lines about who counts as a public accommodation in an economy dominated by online and decentralized services—lines the bill intentionally broadens but does not precisely draw.
The bill’s breadth is its strength and its primary implementation challenge. Because it uses expansive, non‑exhaustive language — and explicitly extends coverage to non‑physical providers "whose operations affect commerce" — parties will litigate the perimeter: Do casual online sellers, small faith‑based charities, or private membership clubs fall within the statute?
The absence of any clear size threshold or de minimis exception means courts will need to define lines that the text leaves intentionally vague.
Another major tension is religious liberty. By removing RFRA as a defense, the bill narrows a federal statutory mechanism that many religiously motivated providers used to justify refusals of service.
That does not eliminate constitutional or state‑law claims; rather, it reroutes litigation to First Amendment doctrines and state statutes, producing uncertain litigation trajectories. The bill also leaves unanswered administration questions: it does not create an explicit enforcement mechanism or identify agency rulemaking to implement restroom‑access standards, nor does it set out damages, notice, or cure procedures tailored to modern online platforms.
Those gaps will generate litigation and require regulatory or legislative follow‑up to avoid uneven enforcement.
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