Parent, education groups protest DOE’s transgender expansion for Title IX

A coalition representing parents and education groups sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) protesting the Biden administration’s expansion of Title IX to include gender identity.

“On behalf of our 25 organizations’ 397,494 members, the undersigned groups write to you to express our deep concerns over the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed rule regarding transgender participation in student sports under Title IX,” said the letter obtained by Fox News.

Title IX was part of the 1975 civil rights legislation that prohibits the discrimination on the basis of biological sex in any school that receives federal funding.

The Biden administration is considering a rule change that would substitute gender identity for biological sex.

“Under the proposed regulation, schools would not be permitted to adopt or apply a one-size-fits-all policy that categorically bans transgender students from participating on teams consistent with their gender identity,” said the DOE’s website explaining the change.

The protesters countered by saying the DOE was acting “cowardly.”

The coalition letter said the administration “ignores the science” that male and female bodies are different, giving transgendered males an unfair biological advantage in sports competitions.

The letter said that allowing males to compete against females puts women and girls at a greater risk for “mental and physical setbacks from injury. As a result, such a change will significantly impede girls’ ability to seek awards and scholarships.”

The coalition also points out that the executive order expanding Title IX encroaches upon the state legislatures’ abilities to pass laws in their own states “and if such a sweeping change be desired at the federal level, it should be enacted through Congress and not by administrative fiat.” 

The group also objects to the Biden administration’s cost analysis, which claims that the proposed regulations will only cost $24 million.

They pointed to the recent experience in Loudoun County Public Schools where changing bathrooms and locker rooms to accommodate transgender students in two schools will cost $11 million.

The letter states that similar costs will be borne by the 98,000 public schools in the country.

The group also says that laws mandating the participation of trans athletes in womens’ and girls’ sports is deeply unpopular with the American people.

A poll conducted by a member of the coalition protesting the rule change found “71% of voters opposed requiring schools to let biological males play for girls’ sports teams.”

Indeed an NPR/Ipsos poll from last summer found that only 24% of U.S. adults support transgender participation in female sports.

House Republicans voted last week to ban trans-identifying biological males from participating against women and girls in sports.

The GOP ban would use the same mechanism that the Biden administration rule change would use to enforce adherence.

Under the bill, “recipients of federal funding who host, operate or facilitate women’s athletic programs and violate the new amendment by allowing transgender athletes to play on a girls’ or women’s team could risk losing that funding,” reported the Washington Post.