President Joe Biden’s effort to redefine gender is not going over very well in some areas of the country. In fact, some have already started pushing back against the Biden administration’s mission to use federal power to force gender ideology on the nation.
Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters has ordered school districts to refuse to comply with the White House’s revamping of Title IX, which is, in part, aimed at lumping biological men experiencing gender dysphoria in with women in sporting events.
Walters gave the direction in a letter to Oklahoma superintendents, according to an exclusive report from the Washington Examiner.
In a letter Wednesday to all local superintendents in the state obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner, Walters called on districts not to make policy changes based on the controversial Title IX overhaul, which redefines sex to include claimed gender identities, calling the rewrite “illegal” and outside compliance with Oklahoma law.
“In Oklahoma, we don’t bend to the senseless will of Biden and his posse eradicating women’s rights and putting women in danger,” Walters told the Washington Examiner. “This is why I’ve instructed every superintendent in my state to completely ignore Biden’s new Title IX changes that allow males to roam in female locker rooms, dorms, and bathrooms — places where women should feel safe.”
Walters urged other states to follow Oklahoma’s lead in fighting the Title IX changes, saying, “It’s time for every state leader to stand up and say enough of this preposterous charade that erases women and puts their safety in jeopardy.”
Walters’ letter predicted that “there will be litigation filed soon challenging the validity of these rules,” and explained that state lawmakers are mulling legislation to define “man” and “woman” by biological sex, not backwards, progressive gender ideology. He expressed his hope that there will be “a preliminary injunction and possibly a permanent injunction that would delay the implementation of these rules while the rule is decided in federal court.”
The Biden administration’s reimagining of Title IX appears intended to force schools to allow biological males to compete in women’s sports and share women’s spaces like locker rooms, bathrooms, and other areas. The rule was originally intended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. Now, it will include people suffering from gender dysphoria, as Walters highlighted in his letter.
“Title IX was designed to ensure women had the guarantee of sex equality in education and an environment free from discrimination,” the letter stated. “But with one pen stroke, you have set women’s rights back decades while weaponizing Title IX into a means to enforce the Administration’s radical ideological viewpoint.”
He called on Cardona to reverse the rule changes, saying he had a choice between going “to sleep at night knowing that you’ve made it more difficult for women to succeed in America” and “doing the right thing.”
The changes to Title IX were announced last week and have already stirred controversy.
This move on Oklahoma should be emulated by all red states, which understand the biological differences between men and women. Progressives have been pushing this agenda for years, and President Biden is gung-ho about using government power to force people to pretend that men can become women and vice versa.
If more states do what Oklahoma is doing, it will be that much harder for the White House to compel institutions to adopt far leftist ideology in school sports. This could go a long way toward protecting women’s spaces.
As I’ve said many times, the success of the effort to push gender ideology on the nation depends on the unwillingness of sensible people to stand against it. Walters appears to be leading the charge. The question is: Will other states follow?
