Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina have joined a growing number of states suing the Biden administration for rewriting Title IX to include gender identities in the definition of “sex.”
The states filed suit Monday afternoon, joined by the advocacy groups Independent Women’s Law Center, Independent Women’s Network, Parents Defending Education, and Speech First, seeking to block the rule from going into effect by its Aug. 1 deadline.
“Biden’s new Title IX rules shred protections for women — that so many fought for over decades,” Florida’s GOP Attorney General Ashley Moody said in a press release. “The idea that young girls can now legally be forced to undress in the same room with males in what is supposed to be a safe space like a locker room, that a young woman could be randomly assigned a roommate that is a biological male with little to no say over the matter, or that biological men would be eligible for women’s scholarships is ludicrous.”
The Biden administration recently rewrote the rules governing the enforcement of Title IX to redefine “sex” to include gender identities, forcing schools to allow males in the private spaces of females. The controversial rules have been roundly criticized on the Right for harming women and girls.
In the complaint, the coalition argued that when enacted, references to “sex” in Title IX were never understood to include “gender identity” or “sexual orientation” but that the rule was rather widely understood to address biological sex. The coalition’s lawsuit also noted that even under the “limited circumstances” where sex discrimination is permissible per the new rule, the norm of gender-separate restrooms and locker rooms is not included.
The Biden administration’s rule also comes in stark contrast to many states that have set up protections for women and girls by barring men from using their private spaces and competing in their sports. If it goes into effect, those states could see their federal education dollars threatened if their schools do not comply.
“The final rule lays bare the Biden administration’s contempt for families, trumping state laws which reiterate parents’ right to access information and make decisions about issues related to their children’s gender identity in schools,” PDE President Nicole Neily said in a press release.
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Neily also noted another aspect of the rule that could put students at risk of harassment complaints for simply voicing some opinions that others find offensive. “By lowering the standard of ‘harassment’ to little more than a one-off expression of humor, satire, or parody, the free speech rights of every young learner in America has become subordinate to how the most sensitive student might interpret a phrase,” she said.
The lawsuit comes after another coalition of states, Louisiana, Mississippi, Idaho, and Montana, joined by advocacy group Defense of Freedom Institute, filed suit to challenge the rules on Monday. Texas, joined by conservative law firm America First Legal, also filed separately.
