Department of Education Moves Forward With Transgenders in Girls’ Sports

May 4, 2023 | Washington, D.C.

by Eagle Forum Executive Director, Tabitha Walter

Last month, the Department of Education released its new Title IX proposal. After over 50 years of protecting women and girls in education and sports, the rule will upend the original intent of the program to allow biological males in female sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms. 

We know that virtue signaling never appeases everyone. Some people who identify as LGBT think that the new rule is lacking. A small carveout in the rule allows exceptions to transgender individuals participating in sports of their opposite sex in cases of “fairness” or “sports-related injuries.” President of the Human Rights Campaign Kelley Robinson released a statement urging states to go above and beyond saying “all transgender students should be presumed eligible to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity.”

The exemptions use broad terminology that sets up coaches and school administrators to be the scapegoats and forces them to evaluate every sport at every grade level to determine if any of them qualify under the government criteria for remaining single-sex. According to the proposed regulation:

“The Department’s proposed regulation would provide that if a recipient adopts or applies sex-related criteria that would limit or deny a student’s eligibility to participate on a male or female team consistent with their gender identity, such criteria must, for each sport, level of competition, and grade or education level, be substantially related to the achievement of an important educational objective and minimize harms to students whose opportunity to participate on a male or female team consistent with their gender identity would be limited or denied.”

Clearly, allowing boys into girls’ sports is unfair and dangerous. The Education Department “recognizes that competition is an integral part of many team sports” and “that schools have an interest in the prevention of sports-related injury,” but they go on to say that “ensuring fair competition and prevention of sports-related injury does not necessarily require schools to adopt . . . sex-related criteria that would limit . . . a student’s eligibility to participate on a male or female team consistent with their gender identity.”  To translate, this means that any single-sex team must justify its exclusion of trans-students to the feds. This will lead to numerous lawsuits resulting in massive litigation fees for schools and families.

This new proposal has not been well received by House Republicans. The House Appropriations Committee held a hearing last month on the Department of Education’s funding needs for the upcoming federal budget. Subcommittee Chair Robert Aderhold (R-AL) began the hearing by condemning DOE Secretary Miguel Cardona’s decision to push transgender ideology into the Title IX program. Citing this among others, he stated:

“Sadly, the data shows that top-line funding for the Department of Education continues to yield worse results for our kids.”

Other members echoed the same sentiments. While the budget cannot directly pull this policy out of the Title IX program, Congress can explicitly deny funds to the enforcement of Title IX while also cutting money to the DOE due to their gross mismanagement of the agency.

Meanwhile, the House passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act (H.R. 734) which prevents schools that receive federal funding from allowing biological males to participate in female sports. The final vote of 219-203 was solely along party lines. This shows how extreme the Democrat party has become and how unwilling they are to listen to parents and student-athletes.

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) had sharp criticism for the new rule stating that it’s “not feelings, it’s fairness.” He went on to say: 

“There is no question, and no one will ever doubt or debate, you bring boys in girls basketball [and] girls will basically be eliminated. You bring boys into volleyball … there’s a reason why the net for women is seven inches shorter than for boys, for men. There’s a reason for that because we understand what’s fair and what the limits might be.”

Rep. Owens confirmed that House Republicans will do everything in their power to combat this ideology through further legislation.

Currently, twenty states have bans against transgender athletes participating in sports opposite of their biological sex; however, these laws would be overturned by a simple rule. This language has been published in the Federal Register on April 13.

TAKE ACTION

The public has been given only thirty days to submit comments, which are due on May 15. Please submit a comment on this outrageous gutting of Title IX protections here. When commenting, use Document ID ED-2022-OCR-0143-0001. You can read our Press Release on the regulations here.