Biden Plan for Transgender Title IX Rules Began on Inauguration Day

The team, according to a senior official who was among the participants, realized there was broad confusion about how Title IX was implemented in schools across the country. The end result, the official said, reflected the “best interpretation” of how to apply the protections of Title IX to transgender athletes and was aimed, at least, to clear up uncertainty. Conservative lawmakers who have worked to pass state bans on transgender athletes have since accused the Biden administration of overreaching. Transgender activists said they were wary of the proposal, arguing that the existing loopholes could be exploited and used for further discrimination.

Mr. Biden was a key figure in the process, officials said. In the spring of 2021, he ordered a broad review of Title IX, when only a few state legislatures around the country, including in Montana, Mississippi, and Idaho, had introduced their own legislation to bar transgender women and girls from competing on sports teams that did not match their sex at birth, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a liberal think tank that tracks the legislation.

Throughout his career, the president has shown particular willingness to engage in Title IX changes. As vice president, Mr. Biden was integral to President Barack Obama’s efforts to overhaul Title IX, in part by issuing guidance that led to aggressive investigations of schools that had mishandled sexual assault complaints and threatened them with funding cuts. Rules proposed in 2018 by Betsy DeVos, the education secretary under President Donald J. Trump, replaced that guidance.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/us/politics/transgender-athletes-schools-title-ix.html