Title IX protections put in place for queer students by President Biden across the United States have officially been blocked by a Kentucky-based federal judge. The protections, which officially updated the language behind discrimination on the basis of sex, were struck down on potential infringement of First Amendment rights.
U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves issued his permanent decision on January 9, following a temporary block on the protections last August, when it was supposed to go into effect. He described the protections as supposedly being riddled with numerous legal shortcomings, and outlined his decision around a predicted rule protecting LGBTQ+ students’ right to be called by their preferred name and pronouns, which he believes would be an infringement on other students’ freedom of speech.
Title IX is a federal law that broadly prohibits discrimination within federally-funded spaces, mostly education, on the basis of sex. It’s been expanded to cover changing boundaries for sex discrimination since its inception in 1972, so this addition is fairly run-of-the-mill. This overhaul, officially proposed in April of last year, would redefine what sex discrimination constitutes—Discriminatory action towards LGBTQ+ people for their gender or sexual orientation would now be punishable under federal law. It would protect bathroom rights for trans students in schools, as well as add protections for pregnant, formerly pregnant, and parenting students. However, 26 states placed temporary bans on the proposed change to Title IX, all of which have issued lawsuits against the administration for proposing the change at all.
The Biden administration did choose to formally withdraw some of the changes this past December, which included student loan forgiveness, following the loss of the 2024 general election. The protections included in this withdraw were ones that would allow some protections for trans student athletes, which has been something of a hot button topic in the past decade or so. Some do suspect that the withdrawal was likely a move made, strangely, in protection of trans student athletes—The less legislation that exists, the less legislation there is for Trump to completely reverse, and there is still grey area to operate within on that subject.
Trump said in a December speech that once he’s in office, the law of the land is to become that there are only two genders, male and female. Therefore, and especially now that a federal judge has struck down all of the proposed protections, any effort that can be made to protect LGBTQ+ students needs to be made as soon as possible.
