Supreme Court Won’t Let U.S. Implement Rules Protecting Transgender Students
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court rejected a Biden administration request to implement new regulations requiring equal treatment for transgender students, leaving in place temporary injunctions lower courts issued at the request of Republican-led states.
In April, the Education Department issued new regulations updating application of a 1972 law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational programs receiving federal assistance. The update included rules prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity, entitling transgender students to use locker rooms and lavatories according to their gender identity, and specifying that safeguards against sex-based harassment include gender identity, among other provisions in the 423-page document.
While the Biden administration has pushed to expand protections for transgender students, Republican-led states have moved in the opposite direction. Half the states, largely in the South and Great Plains, have adopted measures restricting participation in youth sports to teams of the same biological sex, therefore prohibiting transgender students from joining teams reflecting their gender identity.
The 2024 Republican Party platform criticizes “left-wing gender insanity” and declares GOP candidates, including former President Donald Trump, would “reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.”
Opponents of the transgender-student protections sued to block the regulations, and several courts issued temporary orders partially blocking them while litigation proceeds.
“There are two sexes: Male and female,” a federal district judge in Covington, Ky., Danny Reeves, wrote in one such case, in a June decision blocking implementation of the regulations in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia. While Title IX prohibited sex discrimination in “academic courses or programmatic offerings, scholarships, athletic opportunities, and other matters,” Reeves noted that the law allows certain activities traditionally segregated by sex to continue. Those include single-sex schools and dormitories, as well as fraternities and sororities, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and organizations like the YMCA and YWCA, he wrote.
The Biden administration said its approach was in line with a 2020 Supreme Court decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, which extended sex-discrimination protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to transgender employees. In Bostock, two conservatives—Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion, and Chief Justice John Roberts—joined the four liberals then on the court in a 6-3 decision for LGBTQ employees.
“It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex,” Gorsuch wrote. Although dissenting justices suggested the decision would affect hundreds of other federal antidiscrimination laws, Gorsuch stressed the court was leaving disputes over locker rooms and the like for another day.
The Biden administration regulations, however, might bring that day closer.
“Just as Bostock holds that an employer cannot fire or discriminate against an employee simply for being transgender, [the Title IX update] clarifies that a school cannot expel or otherwise discriminate against a student simply for being transgender,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers.
The states argue that regardless of Bostock, the Education Department skirted procedural requirements for issuing regulations, making the new protections invalid.
But taking the matter head-on, the states say that a general protection of transgender people from discrimination shouldn’t extend to certain situations that have long been segregated by sex.
“Longstanding regulations allow sex separation in bathrooms and sports,” Tennessee argued. If the Biden administration’s position is right, “then sex-separated bathrooms and sports violate the statute too—and always have,” it says.
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“There are two sexes: Male and female,” a federal district judge in Covington, Ky., Danny Reeves, wrote in one such case, in a June decision blocking implementation of the regulations in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia. While Title IX prohibited sex discrimination in “academic courses or programmatic offerings, scholarships, athletic opportunities, and other matters,” Reeves noted that the law allows certain activities traditionally segregated by sex to continue. Those include single-sex schools and dormitories, as well as fraternities and sororities, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and organizations like the YMCA and YWCA, he wrote."
Amen
Biden has stop trying to corrupt Title IX.
I thought America held itself out as being "The land of the free".
It's not Biden corrupting Title IX
The libs seem to be on the wrong side of so many commonsense issues.
Transgenderism is a learned mental condition. Surgery and drugs will do nothing for it. Counseling and getting through this temporary emotional confusion are the best options for these patients/
Should a child born intersex (Of Indeterminate Sex) who desperately wants to be assigned either male or female have to navigate puberty without therapy, hormone treatments or surgery because you hold outdated ignorant wrongheaded views contrary to modern medicine?
Being intersexed is different than being transgendered. Intersex happens prior to birth and during development and is an actual physical event.
Transgenderism is a mental disease where the person afflicted can not accept reality or in the case of some people looking for honors and accolades they are not entitled to.
Are you a medical doctor and a board certified psychiatrist?
If not, you are not qualified to make such pronouncements!
What foolish nonsense - please cite your sources regarding being 'intersexed'
Like you know anything about it, biology, or anything related to gender, not that I do, but you most certainly know nothing about it.
This forum is open to all opinions, and no one needs to be "qualified" to offer them.
How many doctors and psychiatrists are members of NT? How often do we see pronouncements here on the insanity of the right?
There’s so much ignorance in that. Please try to learn more about this.
Ignorance is allowing a preteen who isn't old enough to drive, drink, vote, live on their own, or serve in the military to be allowed drugs and procedures that physically alter their body.
Criminal incompetence is allowing the process to occur while knowingly keeping parents in the dark.
How about waiting until at least they are old enough to make their own decisions; and give them access to good counseling (not just a rubber stamp) to make sure they are informed decisions?
Is that too much to ask?
Untreated transgender teens are highly likely to attempt suicide.
You know that. I know it. Even they know it too and do not care!
My first thought jbb - like the entire LGBTQ+ community being/is at higher risk - parents throwing their children out on the streets for being any of the above and tormented and bullied and ridiculed and even killed for being different.
And we need to do better in working with these teens as well as working with their peers so that there is more acceptance of the differences. But a teen is not capable of making such a momentous decision that can and will impact the rest of their life. But puberty blockers and surgery should not be allowed for anybody under the age of being able to legally enter into a contract. Science clearly shows that the brain is still growing and learning until the mid 20's and any such decisions should be postponed until the person is fully cognizant of the impact to their lives. A teenager is not yet ready for that.
No. Ignorance is getting all judgy about a complicated situation without even bothering to educated about it. All the Far Right really cares about in these situations is how self righteously mean they can be. There is a broad spectrum of realities for trans people, but the angry people don’t seem to care.
You have a choice, try to be compassionate and get educated, or just assume you know every fucking thing about every last person going through it, and then be as cruel to them as possible. I see way too much of the latter.
And treatment will take myriad forms. But all these angry preacher-types seem to think the only treatments will be forced hormones and surgeries on 5 year-olds.
You're the one who needs to educate yourself on this issue. Being transgender is wholly different from being gay, lesbian, or bi.
That's not true and has been repeatedly debunked
I didn’t say anything that should prompt that irrelevant response. The previous ignorant thing you wrote was,
Not only is there nothing in that “opinion” that is true, it is arrogant in the extreme for you to imagine that you know the best option for all persons in this situation.
It’s actually really well documented, but if you want to show us your sources, I’ll show you mine.
We still have - and need - discrimination where it’s relevant. And we should try to eradicate it where it’s not relevant.
Discrimination in sports, on the basis of sex, is often necessary, especially in competitive settings. Sports are not segregated based on gender identity. Your gender identity is irrelevant for varsity sports. Your sex is what matters.
Sorry. If you went through male puberty, you shouldn’t be competing against females unless it’s a competition where sex doesn’t make a difference.
Where the Court’s decision might be seen as unreasonable is that this action involved a body of about 10 regulations, most of which, were uncontroversial. The Biden administration wanted the Court to allow those, but instead, the lower court had disallowed them all, and the SCOTUS upheld that choice. I’ll withhold legal opinion on that because there are usually rules about how those kinds of things work and I haven’t reviewed the facts at all.