On the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the Biden administration proposed changes to the law that redefine the meaning of sex and diminish the importance of protection for the rights of biological women. Now the changes are up for public comment.
As Townhall reported, the proposed changes would extend the protections for women from discrimination in educational settings to include transgender students by denying the reality of biological sex. Biden's amendments are just another way to erase Trump's accomplishments during his time in the highest office. As of July 11, the propositions are available for public comment for the 60 days following that date.
After this period closes, the DOE will have to review all the comments submitted to the Federal eRulemaking Portal. There is no strict timeline the DOE has to follow after the 60 day comment period, nor is there any requirement concerning what the agency must do with the comments it receives.
Precedent shows the White House will likely receive thousands of comments during the 60 day period. When the Trump administration made its changes to Title IX, it received more than 124,000 comments and took almost 18 months to apply the changes from the date it originally proposed them.
The Department of Education's fact sheet released June 23 outlines some of the proposed changes (via DOE):
The proposed regulations would clarify that Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination based on sex applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. They would make clear that preventing someone from participating in school programs and activities consistent with their gender identity would cause harm in violation of Title IX, except in some limited areas set out in the statute or regulations. By providing this protection, the proposed provisions would carry out Title IX’s nondiscrimination mandate and help to ensure access to education free from sex discrimination for LGBTQI+ students and others.
In other words, Title IX would no longer distinguish between sex, also known as biological reality, and gender identity under the proposed amendments. The proposal explicitly denies the reality of biological differences between males and females (via DOE):
Contrary to assertions made in 2020 and January 2021, the Department does not have a “long-standing construction” of the term “sex” in Title IX to mean “biological sex.” The text of the statute and current regulations do not resolve this issue; neither the statute nor the regulations define “sex,” purport to restrict the scope of sex discrimination to biological considerations, or even use the term “biological.” The Department does not construe the term “sex” to necessarily be limited to a single component of an individual’s anatomy or physiology.
Here the Biden administration claims that sex has not always meant the same thing nor has it ever had a strict definition. The proposition also explicitly admits it does not care about the rights of biological women, for whom Title IX has been enormously important, as much as it cares about a group of people that make up 0.5% of the population. The original text of Title IX reads (via DOJ):
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
The intent of this was to protect women seeking education and fair treatment in things like collegiate athletics. Now, if the new amendments are applied to Title IX, there would essentially be no difference between women, men, and transgender people. Further, protecting women, who have historically faced barriers to things like higher education and access to athletics, would no longer be the priority of Title IX, even though the policy was created for the purpose of ensuring fairness for women.
The Heritage Foundation clarified what this erasure of biological reality really means:
The dept also indicated they will “engage in a separate rulemaking to address Title IX's application to athletics” to determine *whether* they need a separate set of rules for sports participation.
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) July 12, 2022
While the agency claims that any costs associated with this change are “minimal,” this rule would erase the legal status of and protections for girls and women in nearly every educational institution in the country.
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) July 12, 2022
This is despite the fact that most Americans do not think biological males should be able to compete against women in sports, as Townhall reported.
Conservatives are not even the only ones concerned about Biden's rewritten definition of sex and gender. Townhall talked to Kara Dansky, author of the book "The Abolition of Sex: How the ‘Transgender’ Agenda Harms Women and Girls," and president of the U.S. chapter of Women's Declaration International. She said she does not like the Biden administration's Title IX proposal (via Townhall):
Speaking solely for myself, I'm a lifelong Democrat. And I'm extremely disappointed in the current administration's attack on women's rights by redefining sex to include gender identity throughout federal administrative law. It would be a travesty to try to redefine the word 'sex' for Title IX purposes, to include the nebulous, vague, and incoherent concept of gender identity.