Title IX of Biden’s bill expanding protections for LGBTQ+ students faces another setback

FRANKFORT, Ky. – The Biden administration’s efforts to expand protections for LGBTQ+ students hit another hurdle on Monday when a federal judge in Kentucky temporarily blocked a new Title IX rule in six additional states.

U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves called the order “arbitrary in the truest sense of the word,” issuing a preliminary injunction blocking it in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. His ruling came days after another federal judge temporarily blocked the new rule in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and Montana.

Attorneys general in more than 20 Republican-led states have filed at least seven legal challenges to President Joe Biden’s new policies. Republicans say the policy is a ruse to allow transgender girls to play on women’s track teams. The Biden administration has said the rule does not apply to athletics.

A motion for a preliminary injunction filed by the Republican attorneys general of Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota is still pending. The Department of Education asked a judge to deny the request.

The law, scheduled to go into effect in August, extends Title IX civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ students, expands the definition of sexual harassment in schools and colleges, and adds protections for victims. Title IX, passed in 1972, is a law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.

Monday’s ruling in Kentucky was applauded by Republican state Attorney General Russell Coleman, who said the regulation would undermine equal opportunities for women.

“The judge’s ruling makes clear that the U.S. Department of Education’s attempt to redefine the word ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ is unlawful and exceeds the agency’s regulatory authority,” Coleman said in a statement.

The Department of Education said it will “continue to fight for every student” as it reviews the ruling.

“Title IX ensures that no person will experience discrimination on the basis of sex in a federally funded educational setting,” the agency said in a statement. “The Department developed the final Title IX regulations after a rigorous process.”

In his ruling, Reeves noted that Title IX was intended to “level the playing field” for men and women in education, but said the department was trying to “derail a deeply entrenched law” with the new policy.

“In essence, the department would turn Title IX on its head by redefining the term ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity,'” he said. “But ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity’ don’t mean the same thing. The department’s interpretation is inconsistent with the plain language of Title IX and therefore exceeds its authority to promulgate regulations under that statute.”

The judge said that if the rule goes into effect, students of both sexes “will experience, at a minimum, an invasion of bodily privacy by students of the opposite sex.”

The rule would require schools “to admit biological men into women’s intimate spaces, and women into men’s spaces, in an educational environment based solely on a person’s subjective gender identity,” he said. “This result is not only irreconcilable with Title IX, but also with the broader guarantee of educational protections for all students.”

The new rule also has “serious First Amendment implications,” the judge said.

“The rule includes a new definition of sexual harassment that may require teachers to use pronouns consistent with a student’s purported gender identity rather than their biological sex,” Reeves wrote. “Given the ‘common’ nature of pronoun use in everyday life, teachers will likely be required to use students’ preferred pronouns, regardless of whether this conflicts with the teacher’s religious or moral beliefs. A rule that forces speech and causes such point of view discrimination is unacceptable.”

The ruling by Reeves, appointed to the federal bench by Republican President George W. Bush, was the latest setback for new protections that have been praised by civil rights advocates but drew a sharp backlash from opponents who say they undermine the spirit of Title IX.

The decision was criticized by the Fairness Campaign, a Kentucky-based LGBTQ+ group. Chris Hartman, the organization’s executive director, said the ruling “ignores basic truths about the transgender community and the continued targeting of transgender children, who are among the smallest and most vulnerable populations.”

David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation, a socially conservative, “faith-based” public policy organization in Kentucky, praised the judge for temporarily halting the Biden administration’s “radical redefinition of ‘sex’ that would reverse the opportunities women and girls have enjoyed.” for 50 years under Title IX.”

Several GOP states have laws banning transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports teams. These states argue that the new policy would open the door to allowing this. The Biden administration has proposed a separate rule that would prohibit such blanket bans, but said the newly approved rule does not apply to athletics.

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Associated Press writer Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this report.