The Biden administration issued two new transgender rules last month to allow biological males in female bathrooms and to force some insurance companies to pay for transgender procedures.
The Department of Education redefined “sex” in Title IX to include “gender identity,” or “an individual’s sense of their gender.” Congress established Title IX in 1972 providing females the same opportunities as their male counterparts in sports and other school activities up through college. Now, critics say these changes will harm the very people this historic legislation was intended to protect.
The Heritage Foundation‘s Sarah Parshall Perry told CBN News the new rule violates the very foundation of Title IX.
“This is a fundamental upending of what we’ve known for equality within the concept of federally-funded education within the past 52 years,” she said.
Matt Sharp, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, told CBN News the new rule, scheduled to take effect August first, would allow males identifying as female entry into female bathrooms, locker rooms, and more.
“Even on overnight school trips,” he said. “For example, we’ve got a situation in Colorado where a school district was telling a young girl that she would have to share a bed with a male on a school trip.”
The Education Department also said teachers and students are required to use a transgender person’s preferred pronoun and name.
Perry pushed back on that rule, saying, “It sets on its head essentially all that we’ve known about First Amendment protections for freedom of speech by requiring the use of preferred pronouns.”
While the Biden administration said it intends to rule later on athletics, experts expect more of the same.
“We know when those policies go into effect, the harm that has on female athletes,” Sharp said.
Alliance Defending Freedom is suing the Biden administration on behalf of the Rapides Parish, Louisiana School Board, as part of a substantial push-back across America by ADF and other entities.
“We anticipate filing more lawsuits in other parts of the country on behalf of student athletes and others that are harmed by this unlawful redefinition of sex by the Biden administration,” Sharp said.
Similar lawsuits have already been filed in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Montana, South Carolina, and Idaho.
In addition to the ruling pertaining to schools, the Biden administration also pushed transgenderism into health care. The Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule about federally-funded insurance programs, like the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” The language outlawing discrimination based on sex now includes gender identity.
Jon Schweppe, policy director for American Principles Project, told CBN News the rule will require healthcare professionals to perform procedures for transgendered people.
“If they want sex changes, if they want these procedures, puberty blockers for kids, all sorts of things,” he said.
Schweppe said the new rule could conflict with conscience objections.
“So where doctors who don’t think, for religious reasons perhaps, that this is a good idea, or even for medical reasons, that maybe it’s a bad idea to transition kids, they could be at risk too,” he explained.
This ruling will also likely result in legal challenges, as more than 20 states already ban or restrict gender-altering procedures for minors. Schweppe said both transgender rules constitute a constitutional overreach by the Biden administration.
“They are recognizing they don’t have 60 votes to pass the Equality Act and officially put gender identity into civil rights law, and so they’re using every back door strategy available to them to do that,” he said.
It remains to be seen whether the courts or possibly Congress step-in to block the new rules.