New federal regulations that would effectively force employers and employees to use transgender pronouns are illegal, says a lawsuit filed by 18 states against the Democrat-run executive agency.

Filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, the lawsuit brought by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and 17 other attorneys general contends that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC’s) unilateral move to extend the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s Title VII protections to include so-called “gender identity” represents an unlawful attempt to “enshrine sweeping gender-identity mandates without congressional consent.”