RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Biden administration’s Department of Education is eyeing radical changes to Title IX that could threaten the opportunities afforded to women through the 1972 statute. In a report released Thursday, the department issued proposals to change Title IX regulations to seemingly include transgender women in the protections formerly given to biological women. The most salient recommendation was the proposed regulation to “Articulate the Department’s understanding that sex discrimination includes discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” The Education Department is inviting public comment (although the comment portal is not yet open), and Heritage Action for America has launched a tool kit to help grassroots activists and concerned parents fight back against this. It also is organizing public comments to be submitted against the proposed rule change.

The Department of Education indicates it will pursue a separate rulemaking process for the participation of transgender students in sports. But the department also says the latest proposal clarifies “that preventing someone from participating in school programs and activities consistent with their gender identity would cause harm in violation of Title IX.” So the department certainly seems to be moving toward supporting male athletes who identify as women joining women’s sports at the high-school and college levels.

Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, told National Review:

The Biden administration is weaponizing the rulemaking process to unilaterally destroy sports for women and girls, but the American people have an opportunity to fight back through the comment process. . . . Biden’s proposed change to include gender identity would have devastating consequences for women’s ability to qualify for certain teams, set records, and earn scholarships.

Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX being signed into law by Richard Nixon. The law was enacted in order to guarantee equality of opportunity for women in educational institutions that receive federal funding. The law stipulates that no woman can 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.” Title IX opened up unprecedented new opportunities for women in high-school and college sports. As Axios points out, before Title IX, 294,000 girls played in high-school sports, while women made up only 15 percent of NCAA athletes. Today, 3.4 million girls play in high-school sports, while female athletes make up 44 percent of NCAA athletes.

But female athletes face new challenges. University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, among the highest-profile transgender athletes, famously won a Division I national championship, beating out her biological-female competitors. Four current and former Connecticut high-school track-and-field athletes are appealing a court ruling that denied their petition to have the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. Chelsea Mitchell, one of the plaintiffs, said in a 2021 op-ed for USA Today that she lost four women’s state-championship titles to male athletes: “With every loss, it gets harder and harder to try again.”

The Biden administration’s efforts also could pose a challenge to the 18 states that have passed laws or have statewide rules that ban or limit transgender participation in women’s sports. States that have laws or rules banning or limiting transgender participation in women’s sports would likely take the Biden administration to court if challenged by federal guidelines.

Fortunately, resistance is forming to letting transgender athletes participate in women’s sports. The International Swimming Federation (FINA) rightly decided last Sunday to ban most transgender athletes from competing in women’s swimming competitions. Under the new rule, the only transgender women allowed to compete in women’s aquatic competitions are those who transitioned before the age of twelve or prior to reaching stage two on the Tanner puberty scale. This is a good short-term solution, but this policy does not go far enough. Maintaining this loophole that still allows some transgender competitors to compete fails to recognize the inherent biological differences between men and women that occur even prior to puberty, making boys physically stronger and, in most cases, taller than girls. FINA also mentioned it is working to create a new “open category” for transgender swimmers who do not fit the guidelines. This is the correct solution to this problem.

Anderson explained how this goes beyond women’s sports:

This is only one aspect of the Left’s divisive gender-identity agenda. In addition to destroying women’s sports and violating women’s rights, they also want to teach harmful gender-identity curriculum to young children and even push dangerous puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors without parental consent. Parents finally have a tool to speak up and tell the Biden administration that enough is enough.

United States women’s national soccer-team star Megan Rapinoe told Time in an interview published Sunday that parents have to stop complaining about transgender athletes competing on their daughters’ high-school sports teams: “I’m sorry, your kid’s high school volleyball team just isn’t that important.” Curious, considering that Rapino is part of the USA women’s national soccer team that got trounced 5-2 by a boys’ U-15 soccer team back in 2017. It would’ve been interesting to see if she could’ve held her spot on the team if she’d had to compete against transgender soccer players.

Rapinoe is wrong. High-school sports do matter to parents, and, more importantly, they matter to the girls who participate. They are what prepare young athletes for their college athletic careers, and they are fundamental in the development of America’s youth. Both female athletes and their parents should continue to push back against those who wish to make it harder for girls to succeed in sports. It is shocking that the pushback is coming from the president of the United States.