Biden’s Attack on Women’s Sports

National Review Online

Thursday, April 25, 2024

 

In a sweeping new Title IX rule, the Biden administration has usurped Congress to undermine free speech, dissolve due process, and redefine sex to include “gender identity.” The rule, effective August 1, will force all educational entities in receipt of federal funds to allow males access to female spaces, sports, and scholarships whenever they claim transgender status.

 

In 1972, Title IX, an education amendment to the Civil Rights Act, made it unlawful to discriminate “on the basis of sex.” Of course, there have always been contexts in which it is necessary to acknowledge sex differences to ensure the safety, privacy, and equal opportunity of females — a fact that the law’s drafters explicitly acknowledged. Fifty years ago, lawmakers understood sex to be anatomical and weren’t in the grip of dubious “gender identity” theory.

 

This biology-based understanding of sex still prevails today. Take sports, for instance. Most Americans believe that sports should be segregated by sex, without regard to transgender status. Presumably aware of public opinion, the Biden administration frames its Title IX rewrite as separate from the athletics question, saying it will deal with that issue later. But this claim is false. If discrimination “on the basis of sex” includes gender identity, why shouldn’t that apply to sports?

 

As May Mailman, director of the Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC), has noted, in 2021, the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in the West Virginia women’s sports dispute claiming that, in its interpretation, Title IX’s text already does “not permit West Virginia to categorically exclude transgender girls from participating in single-sex sports restricted to girls.”

 

Moreover, the new Title IX rule specifically notes that locker rooms and restrooms should be available to users based on gender identity. Women and girls may now be exposed to male genitalia where they once enjoyed privacy.

 

When Betsy DeVos was secretary of education under Trump, she put in place robust due-process protocols for those accused of sexual misconduct. Biden’s rule demolishes these. Under the new rule, not only does the accused have no right to see the evidence against him or her, but the definition of “sex-based harassment” has been so broadened that it could even include a person’s use of sex-based pronouns — i.e., biologically accurate and constitutionally protected speech.

 

Some colleges, such as Stanford University, already punish “misgendering” and “mispronouncing” as a form of discrimination. Under Biden’s Title IX omnibus rule, every educational program would have to do the same.

 

Already, some schools justify their decision to “transition” children behind the backs of their parents based on the Department of Education’s flawed Obama-era interpretation of Title IX. Biden’s rewrite perpetuates this erroneous interpretation, worsening the grave nationwide assault on parental rights.

 

The new rule has malignant influence even in health care. Obamacare relies on Title IX to define sex discrimination, so the new rule may require doctors and insurance companies to give drugs and surgeries to gender-distressed children to alter their sex characteristics.

 

In his Title IX ruling, Biden is attempting to deliver on a campaign promise to restore the campus kangaroo courts of the Obama era and appease the LGBTQ activists in his base. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona attempts to dress up this radicalism in the language of moderation. In doing so, he and the media outlets promoting this spin are playing the public for fools.

 

Already, a lawsuit by the IWLC is in the works to challenge this outrageous abuse of executive power. Title IX exists to protect women and girls from sex-based discrimination. Yet the Biden administration would use it to inflict the very damage it purports to prevent.