The Biden administration’s revised Title IX policies cannot be implemented in six more states. Judges from different jurisdictions have now blocked the rules in ten states.
Biden’s rules expand the definition of “sexual descrimination” to include “gender identity.”
U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves in Kentucky wrote in the ruling for Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia, and West Virginia, “There are two sexes: male and female.”
“[D]espite society’s enduring recognition of biological differences between the sexes, as well as an individual’s basic right to bodily privacy, the Final Rule mandates that schools permit biological men into women’s intimate spaces, and women into men’s, within the educational environment based entirely on a person’s subjective gender identity,” Reeves wrote.
He emphasized that the Biden administration’s rules are “impossible to square” with the “broader guarantee of education protection for all students.”
Former NCAA swimmer and biological women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines celebrated the ruling on X, writing, “A federal court granted an injunction for the Title IX lawsuit filed by mentioned states. This is a huge win. The gender ideology house of cards is falling fast.”
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said of the ruling, “As a parent and as Attorney General, I joined this effort to protect our women and girls from harm. Today’s ruling recognized the 50-plus years of educational opportunities Title IX has created for students and athletes. We’re grateful for the court’s ruling, and we will continue to fight the Biden Administration’s attempts to rip away protections to advance its political agenda.”
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti similarly called the ruling a “big win.”
“This is a big win for the Constitution and the people of Tennessee. We fought hard to protect our constitutional separation of powers, which ensures that the people through their elected representatives are the only authority that can make new laws,” he said in a statement.
“If the rule we stopped had been allowed to go into effect on August 1 as scheduled, Tennessee schools and universities would have to let boys into girls’ locker rooms and other private spaces,” Skrmetti continued. “If the rule went into effect, our schools would have to punish teachers and students who declined to use someone’s preferred pronouns. These are profound changes to the law that the American people never agreed to. This rule was a huge overreach by federal bureaucrats, and the Court was right to stop it.”
Last week, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty issued an injunction against the Title IX rules for Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho.
“This case demonstrates the abuse of power by executive federal agencies in the rulemaking process,” he wrote. “The separation of powers and system of checks and balances exist in this country for a reason.”
Explaining his ruling, Doughty said, “Title IX was written and intended to protect biological women from discrimination. Such purpose makes it difficult to sincerely argue that, at the time of enactment, ‘discrimination on the basis of sex’ included gender identity, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, or sex characteristics.” He noted that the changes made to the policy under the Biden administration would “subvert the original purpose of Title IX: protecting biological females from discrimination.”
