Trans-rights activists are attempting to throw Title IX into the battle over allowing transgender athletes to compete against biological women, causing many to fear the federal protections granted to women will be watered down.
In 1972, “Title IX began its congressional life in earnest when an amendment was introduced in the Senate by Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, who explained that its purpose was to combat ‘the continuation of corrosive and unjustified discrimination against women in the American educational system,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Fifty years later, it “prohibits, with certain exceptions, any entity that receives ‘federal financial assistance’ from discriminating against individuals on the basis of sex in education programs or activities.”
In an absurd perversion of the provision’s intent, activists now want to use that protection to give biological men a distinct advantage over female athletes.
Biden’s new Title IX rule could spell the end of sex-segregated college dorms https://t.co/1IQGOKHYsj pic.twitter.com/JEfKWrMd9V
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) July 29, 2022
Sarah Parshall Perry is a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
She feels the move to include those who simply identify as a woman in the Title IX protections will place actual women at a competitive disadvantage long after they graduate from college.
“We actually know that 92% of female executives have played competitive sports in high school or college, so there’s a direct linkage between athletic performance, athletic opportunity and future success later in life,” she told Fox News.
After extensive work under former President Donald Trump’s administration to clarify Title IX, Perry called President Joe Biden’s June proposal to include gender identity in the statute “a stunning act of hubris,” and she’s now devoting her energy to stop the current administration’s desire for “myriad changes” to the law.
‘Trans lives matter’: Joe Biden again pledges to sign bill that would force male athletes into girls’ sports https://t.co/wAPyQ5BI7H pic.twitter.com/Xr79RbpFq2
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) October 17, 2020
Naturally, the Department of Education (DOE) is backing Biden.
“The regulations … will strengthen protections for LGBTQI+ students who face discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” the DOE said at the time.
“I call the transgender political push something akin to a juggernaut because it has picked up such steam and it’s moving at such a precipitous pace,” Perry said.
As Perry noted, many states are “in lockstep” with the woke agenda.
In Ohio, Fox News reports, the General Assembly voted down a bill that would have banned biological males from competing in girls’ sports. The move came just days after a federal court in Connecticut ruled in favor of a policy that gives transgender athletes the right to participate in girls’ leagues — a case that could mark the first of its kind to make it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The plaintiffs had requested the court for an injunction that would scrub the recorded victories of two biologically male athletes who shattered 17 girls’ track meet records and seized 15 women’s state track championship titles,” according to Fox News.
The four female athletes who brought the suit against Connecticut were represented by attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that dismissed the case, “got it wrong.”
“The 2nd Circuit got it wrong, and we’re evaluating all legal options, including appeal,” ADF senior counsel Christiana Kiefer said in a statement. “Our clients—like all female athletes—deserve access to fair competition. Thankfully, a growing number of states are stepping up to protect women’s athletics.”
Court hands trans athletes a big win, deflated female runner reacts: ‘It is not fair’ https://t.co/uwQMi0Sqzc pic.twitter.com/74t2UsGakW
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) December 23, 2022
Political ideology and money are “hard to separate” as motives for the trans rights battles, Perry said, and it’ll take “bankrupting” the ideology to defeat them.
“I think a bankrupting of this entire ideology and its practitioners is definitely due,” she said.
She finds hope across the pond with the Tavistock Clinic, the U.K.’s only clinic dedicated to gender identity for children and trans youths, which closed amid a slew of lawsuits and an independent review.
“I think our biggest gender clinics are going to go the exact same way,” Perry said. “We’re already seeing medical complications, and I’m really hoping that if we can choke the head of the snake by defunding these organizations, then maybe we’ll see this ideology start to go away.”
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