The Biden administration’s new Title IX regulations issued last week avoided using the word “transgender,” but the rules, which go into effect on August 1, are already being interpreted as protecting transgenderism, especially in the use of specialized pronouns when transgender and LGBTQ students demand their use.
Throughout the document, the term “gender identity” is used to describe certain actions that the new rules will force all public schools — not just colleges, but all publicly funded schools — to obey or risk being sued and/or losing federal funding.
The new rules announced last week define sex discrimination as discrimination based on gender identity as well as sexual proclivities, and schools cannot separate people based on sex. The rules do not explicitly say that boys must be let into girls bathrooms and changing rooms, but the language has already been interpreted to do just that.
In a press call with activists, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona insisted that school officials would be forced to use the preferred pronouns demanded by students.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021 (AP Photo/Susan Walsh).
“These regulations make it crystal clear that no one should have to abandon their educational aspirations due to discrimination, whether it’s based on pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other sex-based factors,” Cardona said, according to the LGBTQ-centric Advocate website.
Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for Civil Rights, added that the rules are not just an update, but an overhaul “aimed at ensuring full protection under Title IX.”
Another official on the call reiterated that the rules are aimed to protect LGBTQ students.
“The new rule puts in the regulation itself that discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation violates Title IX,” the official said, adding,
And if, in an investigation, we determine that a student is harassed based on gender identity and subject to a hostile environment that meets the standard in these new regulations, then we would be able to find a violation, and we would be able to ensure that the school comes into compliance under Title IX.
The officials also spoke specifically to “pronoun” use.
“The way that we would analyze that question is to assess whether a student is experiencing a sex-based hostile environment,” an official said.
Further, the official stated:
If the facts meet those standards, which is if, under the totality of the circumstances, sex-based conduct that is subjectively and objectively offensive to a student and to a person in the school community and it rises to the level that it limits or denies access to education, then a hostile environment would be recognized and we would evaluate whether the school had taken sufficient steps to remedy that hostile environment
Clearly, the Biden officials are signaling that improper pronoun use will trigger the protections based on a “sex based hostile environment.”
Lhamon was also asked if the new rules covered athletics, in allusion to transgender athletes. She refused to answer to the question; however, the rules contain 31 references to athletics and that, coupled with the “gender identity” references, is certainly enough to cover transgender athletes, whether or not it is mentioned directly:
However, some critics say that the Biden administration is completely ignoring the First Amendment problems with forcing people to recognize “gender identity”:
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