(Headline USA) The corrupt Education Department, fresh off its failed attempt at student-loan amnesty, is planning yet again to circumvent the law through administrative acrobatics, using Title IX regulations to force federally funded schools to allow transgender athletes, even in states that ban them.
“Every student should be able to have the full experience of attending school in America, including participating in athletics, free from discrimination,” said Miguel Cardona, Biden’s education secretary, in a statement.
Schools and colleges across the U.S. would be forbidden from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes under the proposal released Thursday by the Biden administration, which claimed teams could create some limits in certain cases to ensure fairness.
The proposed rule sends a political counterpunch toward a wave of Republican-led states that have sought to ban trans athletes from competing in school sports that align with their non-biological gender identities. If finalized, the proposal would become enshrined as a provision of Title IX, the landmark gender-equity legislation enacted by the Richard Nixon administration in 1972.
But critics say it does the exact opposite of what Title IX intended by giving those who are, for all intents and purposes, male an unfair advantage over biological females.
“The Biden administration’s rewriting Title IX degrades women and tells them that their athletic goals and placements do not matter,” said Christiana Kiefer, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom.
Kiefer, who represented Connecticut runners in a lawsuit over the participation of two transgender girls in track and field events, described the Title IX change as “a slap in the face to female athletes who deserve equal opportunity to compete in their sports.”
The policy change must now undergo a lengthy approval process, and it’s almost certain to face challenges.
All told, at least 16 states now have bans in effect covering at least high school interscholastic sports. Some also extend to intramural, club or college sports. Enforcement of bans in at least three other states has been put on hold by courts, and one more has adopted a ban that doesn’t take effect until July.
Under the Education Department’s proposed rule, no school or college that receives federal funding would be allowed to impose a “one-size-fits-all” policy that categorically bans trans students from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
Still, the proposal leaves room for schools to develop team eligibility rules that could ultimately result in restrictions around trans athletes’ participation.
That would be allowed only if it serves “important educational objectives,” such as fairness in competition and reduction of injury risks.
Any limits would have to consider the sport, the level of competition and the age of students. Elementary school students would generally be allowed to participate on any teams consistent with their gender identity, for example. More competitive teams at high schools and colleges could add limits, but those would be discouraged in teams that don’t have tryouts or cuts.
Biden’s administration used “fairness of competition” as criteria, which has been part of the debate both in the U.S. and globally. But officials offered no specifics on how this could be done.
Of the tens of millions of high school students in the U.S., about 300,000 youth between the ages of 13 to 17 identify as transgender, according to a 2022 study from the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA focused on LGBT issues. The number of athletes within that group is much smaller; a 2017 survey by Human Rights Campaign suggested fewer than 15% of all transgender youth play sports.
Asked about the state bans now in place, a senior Education Department official briefing reporters on condition of anonymity said Title IX is the law of the land and officials would work to ensure it’s being followed in all the states.
Elsewhere, Republican lawmakers insisted they had the right to set policies in their states. The Biden administration’s announcement came a day after Kansas lawmakers succeeded in overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s third veto in three years of a bill to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.
“At what point does the federal government not understand the U.S. Constitution that says we have states’ rights?” said Republican state Rep. Brenda Landwehr, of Wichita. “We can make decisions on our own.”
Critics argue transgender athletes have an advantage over cisgender women in competition. Last year, Lia Thomas became the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming title. College sports’ governing body, however, adopted a sport-by-sport approach to transgender athletes in January 2002, though recently the NCAA’s board decided it won’t be fully implemented until 2023-24.
The NCAA released a statement Thursday night saying: “The NCAA’s current transgender student-athlete participation policy aligns with the Olympic movement and balances fairness, inclusion and safety for all student-athletes. That policy remains in place while the lengthy Title IX regulatory process plays out.”
At the same time, international sports-governing bodies are instituting policies that ban all trans athletes from competing in track and field and effectively ban trans athletes from women’s swimming events.
Donna de Varona, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming and a member of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, said her hope is to find a “nuanced approach” to finding space for transgender athletes while allowing for Title IX to make sure girls and women have “fairness, opportunity and safety.”
“There’s plenty of room. … Why does it have to be in the women’s category? We’re already being compromised in our reproductive rights and now we have the other spectrum with sports,” de Varona said in a phone interview.
President Joe Biden’s administration proposed a separate federal rule last year that for the first time would extend Title IX rights to LGBT students.
That rule—which drew more than 240,000 comments from the public and sharp opposition from conservatives—is expected to be finalized as soon as next month.
The new proposal doesn’t offer examples of acceptable limits that could be placed on school sports, but it clarifies that restrictions couldn’t be directed at trans students only. Schools would be left to navigate that tricky legal terrain, with the knowledge that any violation could bring a federal civil rights investigation or lawsuits.
Schools that choose to impose limits must “minimize harms” to students who lose out on athletics opportunities, the proposal says. If a school can achieve objectives like fairness in ways that cause less harm, then the school could be deemed to be violating Title IX.
“Preventing students from participating on a sports team consistent with their gender identity can stigmatize and isolate them,” according to background information provided by the administration. “This is different from the experience of a student who is not selected for a team based on their skills.”
Schools that violate Title IX can face penalties up to a complete loss of federal funding, although no school has ever been dealt that punishment.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
