Texas files lawsuit against Biden Administration over new Title IX rules for transgender individuals

Texas filed a lawsuit Monday over the Biden administration’s new Title IX rules forcing public schools to allow trans-identifying males to compete in women’s sports and use women’s bathrooms.

Earlier this month, the Education Department unveiled new Title IX regulations to prohibit schools from enforcing blanket bans on trans-identifying males in girls’ sports set to take effect in August.

Title IX is the 1972 federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination at schools receiving federal funding.

In response, Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit alleging the administration is attempting to twist the federal law’s meaning to align with “radical gender ideology.”

“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” Paxton wrote in a statement Monday. “This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk.”

America First Legal joined Texas in filing the lawsuit and is serving as outside counsel for the state.

“The changes would fundamentally transform the educational atmosphere of publicly funded educational institutions, forcing communities to capitulate to unscientific gender ideology and putting girls and women at risk in K-12 schools and on college campuses,” the conservative legal group said.

The new regulations will apply to all public K-12 schools, colleges, and universities that receive federal funding.

Parental rights advocates have criticized the new regulations as too vague, saying they will discourage schools from enforcing any limits on males in girls’ sports.

Transgender activists, meanwhile, have reacted with concern that the new policy gives too much leeway to schools that are looking to ban trans-identifying males from athletically competing with girls.

The updated rules may also conflict with laws in several states restricting trans-identifying students from playing on girls’ teams or using girls’ facilities.

The Biden administration’s new rules state that schools that receive federal funding may not ban biological males in girls’ sports wholesale, but they may exclude them on a case-by-case basis.

“Sex-related criteria” at schools that would limit or ban a trans-identified student from playing on the team of their preferred gender must meet two standards. First, the criteria must be related to an “important educational objective,” and second, the criteria must also “minimize harms” to the trans-identified student.

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Preventing sports-related injuries would be an example of an “important educational objective,” the department noted.

High school girls have been injured playing with trans-identifying males. Last year in North Carolina, a female high school volleyball player suffered severe trauma to her head and neck after a trans-identifying male player spiked a volleyball that hit her head.

Another example of an “important educational objective” would be “fairness in competition.”

Female athletes at high schools and colleges in several states have spoken out against competing against biological males.

In Connecticut, several high school girls filed Title IX claims in a federal lawsuit in 2020, arguing that competing against trans-identifying males resulted in them missing opportunities to win championship titles, set state records, and obtain scholarships.