In a not so shocking twist, in December, the Biden administration halted its efforts to both forgive students loans and protect transgender athletes. But it might be for the better?
The halt is due to pending lawsuits regarding Title IX and gender identity. Because of these ongoing suits, the Department of Education says it will not be issuing a regulation on trans athletes at the current moment. The document explaining this was released on December 20. The Title IX rule change was issued in April 2023, which did not allow schools to entirely ban trans athletes from competing, however they could put regulations on which trans students could compete. This rule change was never finalized, and sources said back in March that this was due to trans athletes being a hotbutton issue in the election. Biden was biding his time until after the election to sign anything into regulation. The Title IX rule changes would have come with some other changes as well, such as extending the “discrimination based on sex” portion to officially include LGBTQ+ students. These rules took effect on August 1; however, they were met with backlash and preliminary injunctions issued by judges in 26 states—most of them Republican-led. The Supreme Court ruled that Biden could not enforce that rule change in those 26 states while litigation continued.
The Associated Press published an article explaining why this, and many other unfinished rules, were pulled before Trump is inaugurated on January 20. Pulling the regulations entirely makes it harder for the new administration to implement any rules, as they would have to start from scratch. According to The AP, this could take “months or even years.” The New York Times reached out to the White House directly for comment on the withdrawals, which they reported were “designed to insulate both policies against immediate manipulation by the incoming administration.” The White House declined to comment.
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