By Louis Knuffke
“It will be the end of women’s sports, sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms, sororities, and dorms – all vanquished by an administrative state fiat that almost no one supports”
The Biden administration published on Friday changes to the Title IX discrimination law to now include “gender identity,” setting the stage for legal fights with nearly half the states, which have passed laws to protect women and children from the transgender ideology.
The newly published Title IX regulations expand the federal government’s prohibition against “discrimination” to now include under its umbrella “discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”
The move has drawn strong public criticism from conservatives, who have rallied behind the protection of women and children from transgender ideology in schools and public spaces, and the erosion of basic safeguards such as sex-exclusive locker rooms, restrooms, and sports.
Rep. Julianne Young, member of the Idaho legislature who introduced the Gem State’s recent Definition of Sex law (which affirms that “there are only two sexes, male and female”) expressed her outrage at the administration’s abuse of a law originally meant to protect women so that it now does just the opposite.
In comments to LifeSiteNews on Biden’s new changes to Title IX, Young stated, “It is outrageous and unconscionable that the Biden administration is now using civil rights law created to protect women to assault them, undermining their privacy, dignity, and safety!”
Heritage Foundation conservative policymaker Jay Richards, who has worked extensively on legislation regarding transgender issues, told LifeSiteNews that, “The new rule interpreting title IX is, in fact, an assault on the point of the law itself. The law is intended to protect Americans against sex discrimination. But the new rule defines sex – the biological difference between male and female – to include ‘gender identity.’ Gender identity refers to a supposed internal subjective state. It is manifestly not the same as biological sex. This new rule is a paradigmatic example of using the rulemaking process to subvert a law duly passed by Congress. If applied, it will mean the destruction of women’s rights in particular.”
Brandon Showalter, host of the Christian Post podcast Generation Indoctrination: Inside the Transgender Battle, and co-author of the book Exposing the Gender Lie, told LifeSiteNews:
The spirit of the age, the great lie of our time, is rooted in a heinous, false anthropology – that an ineffable ‘gender identity’ known only to the person claiming to have one – defines a human being at the most basic, ontological level. When a material falsehood such as ‘you are whatever you say you feel’ is enshrined in government policy, as it has been in the recently revamped Title IX regulations, there are real-world consequences and women are girls almost always bear the cruelest brunt. Human beings are only ever always either male or female. No one has ever been born in the wrong sexed body and no one ever will be. All people of goodwill must continue to resist the abuse and degradation that gender ideology is wreaking on humanity.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, (R-NC) chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, also strongly condemned the new regulation saying, “This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender.”
Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who oversaw Trump administration reform of Title IX, which strengthened protections for women, told the Washington Examiner in February that Biden’s changes “may well be the most anti-woman regulation of all time.”
“It will be the end of women’s sports, sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms, sororities, and dorms – all vanquished by an administrative state fiat that almost no one supports, which is why the Biden administration advanced it in the dark of night,” she warned. “Every parent and child should be horrified this rule is moving forward.”
DeVos said the new regulation “returns us to the untenable days where there is no due process on campus and instead radical gender ideologues call all the shots.”
“The rule is sexist, illegal, and unpopular, but appeasing the far-left flank is more important to the Biden administration than doing what’s right for students,” she insisted.
In a press release following the changes to Title IX, Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Rachel Rouleau said, “The Biden administration’s radical redefinition of sex turns back the clock on equal opportunity for women, threatens student safety and privacy, and undermines fairness in women’s sports. It is a slap in the face to women and girls who have fought long and hard for equal opportunities.”
“The administration continues to ignore biological reality, science, and commonsense, and women are suffering as a result. The administration’s new regulation will have devastating consequences on the future of women’s sports, student privacy, and parental rights, which is why Alliance Defending Freedom plans to take action to defend female athletes, as well as school districts, teachers, and students who will be gravely harmed by this unlawful government overreach,” Rouleau stated.
In May 2023, a group of 22 Republican senators led by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, called on the president to withdraw the proposed changes to Title IX, arguing they ran contrary to Congress’ clear intention in passing the law.
“Congress made clear that its intention in passing Title IX was to prohibit discrimination against women participating fully in all aspects of athletic and academic opportunity at institutions that received federal financial assistance,” the senators wrote. “This proposed rule uses weakly-associated case law and polarizing social concepts to broaden the definition of women and girls to include individuals who identify as women, and in doing so, the intent of the law is destroyed and women are marginalized yet again.”
