Biden's Title IX Rewrite: Forcing a Political Agenda at the Expense of Women
The Biden Administration’s radical rewrite of Title IX guts a half century of protections and opportunities for women. How did we get here? What's next?
On Friday, the Department of Education, under the leadership of the allegedly devout Catholic President Joe Biden, continued its goal to move the U.S. closer to solidifying the state religion…er, the cult of progressivism. This time the focus was changing Title IX to recognize the inability of women to lie but essentially making "believe all women" the law while simultaneously sacrificing women and girls on the altar of Transgenderism. Yes, I am being snarky, and if it’s not yet clear, this administration has a natural gift for ass-hattery.
Biden’s Edict…Executive Order 13988
The changes to Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools, stems from Executive Order 13988, which expands the definition of sex to include sexual orientation and “gender identity.”
Biden, keeping with his track record for having a complete and total disregard for the Constitution and the Supreme Court, decided to issue this edict, err…Executive Order, titled "Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation," the day after his inauguration in order to score virtue points with the cult of progressivism. Never mind, this erodes the rights of women and girls.
There are a lot of issues with the changes to Title IX, such as the almost total erosion of due process when handling sexual harassment and assault allegations in educational institutions. (You know because…"believe all women.") This includes the rolling back of Trump’s administration's ban on the "single-investigator" modal, meaning that now "one administrator can act as detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury on a Title IX complaint."
Accused students will lose the right to have access to all evidence gathered in the university’s Title IX investigation, their right to a live hearing, will not be allowed to have an adviser or attorney cross-examine adverse witnesses, and there will be no requirement that an investigation open with a written complaint.
This means that an individual can simply make a verbal accusation with no evidence, and the accused student will be stripped of all their due process rights.
The rule changes also remove the requirement that harassment must be "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive" to be actionable. Instead, the new standard is "severe or pervasive," which lowers the threshold for what is actionable harassment. Meaning that “misgendering” could be considered harassment.
For this piece, however, the focus is on the changes that allow men who believe they are women into women’s spaces, compete for women’s scholarships, and most very likely participate in women's sports. I am also going to explain how the heck we got to this point. The final amendments to Title IX will take effect on August 1.
Biden’s Redefines "Sex" with Bostock
In the EO, Biden refers to the Bostock v. Clayton decision, which expanded the definition of "sex" under Title VII—specific to employment—to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He instructed federal departments to apply this broader definition to other laws, including Title IX, the Fair Housing Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Mind you, the Supreme Court, in the Bostock ruling, explicitly limited its scope to employment discrimination and that it was not to extend to other areas like sports or facilities access.
"We do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind. The only question before us is whether an employer who fires someone simply for being homosexual or transgender has discharged or otherwise discriminated against that individual 'because of such individual's sex.'" - Justice Gorsuch
The cult of progressivism has been gradually implementing and codifying its agenda over many years. But in recent years, there has been a significant pushback, with 24 states now having passed laws limiting transgender participation in sports. However, the Biden administration is doing its best to undo those successes to the detriment of women’s rights.
To understand how this all began, we have to travel back to 2013 when the murmurings of Anti-racism and Transgendersim were starting to emerge from academia and seep into the mainstream.
It was four years before the Evergreen University Riots that resulted in the resignation of Brett Weinstein and three years before anyone would know about Jordan Peterson and his criticism of Canadian bill C-16, which added gender identity and expression as protected grounds in the Canadian Human Rights Act, making it criminal to misgender a person.
Bostock v. Clayton: A Landmark Case
Gerald Bostock was a veteran child welfare services coordinator with Clayton County, Georgia, with a decade of experience. In 2013, he joined a gay recreational softball league, and not long after, he faced some criticism for his involvement in the league and his sexual orientation. During a meeting attended by his supervisor, disparaging comments were made about Gerald's sexual orientation and his participation in the league. Around the same time, the county decided to audit the program funds that Gerald was in charge of. Soon after, they fired him, claiming he exhibited "conduct unbecoming of its employees."
Just a few months after he was fired, Bostock filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), claiming he was fired for being gay, which he argued was against the rules laid out in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By 2016, he hadn't gotten the resolution he hoped for, so he went ahead and sued the county directly, arguing that they discriminated against him based on his sexual orientation.
The court tossed out his lawsuit, saying he was basing his argument on an interpretation of Title VII that didn't mesh with a 1979 ruling that had recently been upheld in 2017 by the Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital case, which ruled Title VII did not include sexual orientation as a protected class. Evans attempted to take the case to the Supreme Court, but they declined to hear it.
Bostock appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, which upheld the lower Court's ruling. The court pointed out that it could only overturn a previous decision if there were new ones from the Supreme Court, leading Bostock to petition the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari.
The Court granted the writ and decided to consolidate Bostock's case with Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, involving a skydiving instructor who was fired after revealing his sexual orientation and the case that brings us to where we are today, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. EEOC, where a transgender funeral director was dismissed after announcing his transition from male to female.
Ruling and Consequences of Bostock v. Clayton
In the Supreme Court case Bostock, the majority ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is essentially a form of sex discrimination.
Here's a simple breakdown of their reasoning:
Imagine a company fires a male employee because he dates men, but it wouldn't fire a female employee who does the same. According to Justice Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion for the majority, this scenario clearly shows discrimination based on the employee's sex—something that's directly banned under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court concluded that you can't really discuss sexual orientation or gender identity without involving one's sex. So, under this ruling, treating someone differently because they are homosexual or transgender is, by default, treating them differently because of their sex.
The argument is that Gorsuch's approach is rooted in a straightforward interpretation of what Title VII says. If changing the employee's sex would change the employer's decision, then it's discrimination "because of sex."
However, remember that Gorsuch also specified that this ruling only applied to Title VII and did not "purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind. The only question before us is whether an employer who fires someone simply for being homosexual or transgender has discharged or otherwise discriminated against that individual 'because of such individual's sex."
But as if Justice Alito has a crystal ball hidden in his chambers, he warned that expanding "sex" to include gender identity could have some detrimental far-reaching consequences.
Alito warned, "The Court's decision... will be cited as a ground for coming to the same conclusion with regard to any other federal or state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex." He highlighted that statutes like Title IX, the Fair Housing Act, and other federal laws could be affected, which is precisely what Biden's E.O. does.
Justice Alito also pointed out the following concerns:
Concerns about sex-segregated spaces: "The Court may wish to avoid this subject, but it is unavoidable. Under the Court's reasoning, any institution that refuses to hire or retain an employee who identifies with the other sex and demands to be treated as a member of that sex could face a Title VII lawsuit if it does not surrender."
Potential effects on religious organizations: "The Court tries to convince readers that its decision will have no effect on religious organizations, but no one should be fooled. The position that the Court now adopts will threaten freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and personal privacy and safety."
Start the countdown clock because if Biden wins the election and the Democrats gain control, you know the next sacrifice to the church of progressivism will be freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
The New Title IX
That brings us to Friday when the Biden administration revealed its planned changes to Title IX.
The finalized new rule was due to be released last May, but it hit a snag with a flood of public feedback—over 240,000 comments, to be exact. That's nearly double what they got the last time they tried tweaking the rules in 2020.
Clearly, these changes have struck a nerve, considering over 30,000 objections rolled in from folks like the American Family Association, who are worried that allowing men who identify as women in sports could be detrimental to girls and women's sports. Meanwhile, supporters like the National Women's Law Center are all in, pushing nearly 10,000 comments to make sports more "inclusive" for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex athletes. Mind you, these are the same type of people who think sports and competition are pointless.
Under this new rule, not only are women's spaces on the chopping block, but due process is also under attack. The rule aims to not only change the long-standing definition of sex but also address how schools handle sexual misconduct by ditching the stricter safeguards set by the previous administration—things like live hearings and cross-examinations— you know, what one would expect in a country that values due process. They're also making it easier to prove a case with a "preponderance of the evidence" rather than needing "clear and convincing evidence."
Friday's release of the intended rule changes to Title IX on Friday specifically lays out their intent to expand the definition of "sex" to include transgender individuals. Although they did not expressly address transgender athletes, it's clear that the administration is not going to allow a complete ban on transgender athletes. This means men and boys will play women's sports and be allowed in locker rooms with their sticks and berries for all to see. What remains to be determined are the requirements for them to be eligible to participate in women's sports.
The fact there even needs to be a separate rule specifying how transgender athletes can be eligible to participate in athletics is evidence of how ridiculous this all is and that men and women are different.
The administration has offered no timetable for finalizing the eligibility requirements. Biden is likely sidestepping the issue because of the presidential election. The fact is, it's not a popular position. According to Gallup, the majority of Americans believe that transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender, increasing by seven points since Biden first signed his EO in 2021. But Biden is sure to disregard what Americans want to placate the most radical Democrats.
Once this rule is finalized, it will not end because 24 states have passed laws limiting transgender participation in sports since 2021. I predict there will be challenges, possibly injunctions, and perhaps a revisit to the Supreme Court, which today has a very different composition than it did in 2016.
Conclusion
I do not care or wish to dictate how a grown person wants to live their life even if I disagree with their choices. Mainly because I don't want anyone telling me how to live mine, but there are fundamental objective truths in the world, one being women and men are different, and it does not matter how a man dresses or how many hormones they pump into their body. They will always be men, they will never be women, and they will always have a physical advantage over women. This is why there are separate spaces and sports for women.
It wasn't until 1972 that Title IX offered safety, fairness, and opportunity for women in sports at educational institutions. Still, here we are just over five decades later, and Biden is not only stripping women of safe gender-specific spaces but jeopardizing women's opportunities for athletic scholarships and safety in women's sports.
Biden and the Democrats will claim that they are the party of protecting women's rights. But only when it applies to "reproductive rights" —the murdering babies — and not women's right to participate in safe and fair academic sports. When it comes to oppression hierarchy, according to progressivism, a man who believes he is a woman is higher than women, so it's okay to erode women's rights because what is more important is the perception of who is most oppressed, not the biological fact of the differences between the sexes.
Not surprisingly, there was zero coverage of this on the Sunday network news shows, and the coverage from MSM news online publications, such as CNN, makes little to no effort to address the effects the Title IX changes will have on women.
Finally, to conclude this conclusion. Let me make it clear; I will not participate in perpetuating the lie that "trans-women are women" for the sake of some grown man's feelings to the detriment of women's spaces, opportunity, and, above all else, safety.
How do you feel about these new changes? Do you have any questions? Comment below.