Attorneys general from 15 states threaten legal action against Biden administration to protect women’s sports

As the Biden administration threatens to remove protections for women in sports, several states are fighting back.

In a letter sent to the Department of Education, attorneys general from 15 states…

As the Biden administration threatens to remove protections for women in sports, several states are fighting back.

In a letter sent to the Department of Education, attorneys general from 15 states threatened legal action if the federal government modifies Title IX to effectively allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. The goal of the letter is to “safeguard the integrity of women’s sports.” Title IX has protected female athletes for the past 50 years.

The attorneys general say the administration’s recently announced plan to amend Title IX is unjustified. “We therefore urge the Department to halt its effort and not disturb the current Title IX regulations,” the letter says. “Make the right choice for the rule of law as well as students, parents, teachers and schools.”

Biden’s crusade to reform Title IX began the day he took office. The Lion previously reported that in January, President Biden signed an executive order changing the legal interpretation of Title IX to include gender identity in the definition of “sex-based discrimination.”

In March, Biden went a step further, announcing that within 100 days, the Department of Education must propose new wording for Title IX, in order to encompass discrimination against someone who identifies as a female, even if the person was born a biological male. 

States are threatening legal action in part because several of them now have their own laws that directly contradict the administration’s new interpretation of Title IX.

In their letter, the attorneys general explain that distinctions based on sex are necessary in athletics “because biological females and biological males possess profound physiological differences,” and ignoring these differences “would have a detrimental effect on the great strides made over the last 50 years to create equal athletic opportunity.”

More athletes have recently become emboldened to support keeping sports separated by biological sex. University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines told Fox News, “The majority of us female athletes, or females in general, really, are not OK with this, and they’re not OK with the trajectory of this and how this is going and how it could end up in a few years.”

Still, it doesn’t appear the Biden administration will waver. Biden has said of state laws protecting women’s sports that “these bills are government overreach at its worst, they are un-American, and they must stop.”

In addition to this latest threat of legal action, 20 states already sued the federal government in 2021 to safeguard the original intent of Title IX.