Get a free copy of Parental Rights & Education when you subscribe to our newsletter!
“…defendants ignore the limited reach of Bostock. The Bostock decision only addressed sex discrimination under Title VII; the Supreme Court expressly declined to ‘prejudge’ how its holding would apply to ‘other federal or state laws that prohibit sex discrimination’ such as Title IX.”
–U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE CHARLES ATCHLEY
A federal judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking the Biden administration’s attempt to require schools to allow transgender students use the bathroom and locker room according to their gender identity, as well as to compete in athletics against athletes of the opposite sex.
Judge Charles Atchley of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee granted the request of the 20 state attorneys general for an injunction after they argued that the Biden administration’s rewriting of Title IX to include transgenders would prevent them from enforcing state laws.
Title IX was passed in 1972 to guard against discrimination in education based on sex, but the Biden administration expanded it to cover sexual orientation and gender identity.
As its legal basis, the administration relied on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that sexual orientation and gender identity were protected classes in employment discrimination under Title VII.
Under the Biden’s administration’s new interpretation of Title IX, all K-12 schools and higher education institutions that receive federal funding are required to let students use the locker room and bathroom corresponding to their chosen gender rather than their biological sex, as well as to allow transgender athletes to compete against the opposite biological sex in all sports. School staff were also required to use a student’s preferred pronouns. The administration had threatened to withhold federal funding from any schools that did not obey.
In announcing the injunction, Judge Atchley ruled that the Biden administration had misused the guidance of the Bostock decision. He wrote:
“Both the Department and EEOC maintain that their respective guidance documents are required by the Bostock decision. However, defendants ignore the limited reach of Bostock. The Bostock decision only addressed sex discrimination under Title VII; the Supreme Court expressly declined to ‘prejudge’ how its holding would apply to ‘other federal or state laws that prohibit sex discrimination’ such as Title IX.”
He added, “Similarly, the Supreme Court explicitly refused to decide whether ‘sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes’ violate Title VII. Bostock does not require Defendants’ interpretations of Title VII and IX. Instead, Defendants fail to cabin themselves to Bostock’s holding.”
Atchley also wrote that the Department of Education’s guidance documents are invalid because the agency did not adhere to the public notice and comment requirements.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which filed last year to intervene in the case on behalf of the Associate of Christian Schools International and three female public school athletes, hailed the ruling.
ADF Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs responded, “Girls involved in sports deserve the opportunity to compete on a safe and fair playing field against other female athletes. The court was right to find that the Biden administration exceeded its authority in issuing orders that jeopardize fair play.”
He added, “The Biden administration’s radical push to redefine sex in federal law—and without the required public comment period—threatens to erase women’s sports and eliminate the opportunities for women that Title IX was intended to protect. We are pleased that female athletes will be protected in 20 states while this lawsuit moves forward.”
The injunction will only extend to the 20 states that were part of the original lawsuit.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration continued to push its views and policies regarding transgender children. Yesterday, United States Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine called for laws to “support and empower” transgender youth. Levine, who is transgender, claimed that transgender students deal with more depression and anxiety and asserted that laws that restrict their ability to compete in sports according to their gender identity and to receive gender-affirming treatment, as well as ongoing harassment, are the cause of these issues.
“So we really want to base our treatment and to affirm and to support and empower these youths not to limit their participation in activities in sports and even limit their ability to get gender-affirmation treatment in their state,” Levine said.
With so many problems facing the country, why is the Biden administration so fixated on this issue? One of its key goals appears to be micromanaging the way states deal with transgender students. The left is obsessed with advancing the theory that any attempt to protect students from having to share private spaces with someone of the opposite sex or to compete against someone with a distinct competitive advantage will cause transgender students to have depression and possibly commit suicide.
State laws restricting biological males’ ability to compete against females isn’t an attempt to harass transgender students; it’s intended to protect women from being erased by an ideology that sees transgenders as more important than women. And laws preventing experimental procedures that irreversibly harm and alter children and teenagers aren’t harming transgender youth, it’s protecting them. The data has long shown that the vast majority of children with true gender dysphoria will eventually grow out of it and become comfortable with their biological sex. They will, that is, absent indoctrination and a hard push towards transgender transition by adults, as Secretary Levine is insisting on.
The attempt to trample on states and schools, and, by extension, families and children, is an attempt to reshape reality. The left can’t get most people to believe that the concept of sex is fluid, so it attempts to force its view on the populace. No one should buy into the left’s lies and twisted logic that only by reinforcing a person’s delusions can you stop them from committing suicide.
Children need parents — not buddies, not doormats, and not mad scientists. This means parents who will say no and do the difficult work of loving a teen through confusion and difficult times.
The Bible makes it clear that God created humans as male and female. This truth is not only shown in Genesis 1, but Jesus reiterates it in Matthew 9:4, ESV: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?”
For the entirety of history, in every society, everyone has understood that there are men and women, and they have differences. Suddenly, over the past few years, along come people claiming that no, in fact, gender is fluid and biological sex is mutable and that anyone who thinks otherwise is going to cause people to kill themselves.
Christian, don’t listen to them. The ordered biological design put in place by the Creator is biblical, it’s rational, and it’s scientific. In the face of this great perversion and pressure to conform, continue to stand tall on the truth and stand up for women and young people.
