A federal court on Thursday blocked President Joe Biden’s proposed changes to Title IX, halting his administration’s efforts to expand the definition of sex to include gender identity nationwide.
The Biden administration’s rewrite of Title IX, first introduced in a January 2021 executive order, aimed to allow biological males to participate in women’s sports and access women-only spaces. The proposed rule sparked significant backlash, with critics arguing it undermined the original intent of the landmark law, which protects against sex-based discrimination in education.
Chief Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Kentucky district court, appointed by President George W. Bush, criticized the administration’s attempt to reinterpret Title IX.
“It is abundantly clear that discrimination on the basis of sex means discrimination on the basis of being a male or female,” Reeves wrote. “Expanding the meaning of ‘on the basis of sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ turns Title IX on its head.”
The ruling comes after U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction in a related case in June. Doughty, based in Louisiana, argued the Biden administration’s changes violated the separation of powers and were inconsistent with Title IX’s original intent. He stated that the law “was written and intended to protect biological women from discrimination.”
Doughty also rejected the administration’s reliance on the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, which expanded sex discrimination protections to include transgender identity in employment law under Title VII. He noted that Bostock does not extend to Title IX, and federal courts remain divided on whether it applies to education law.
