The Trump administration has scored a big win for female athletes who want a fair playing field.
The Department of Education is rescinding Title IX "protections" for LGBTQ students, as reported by The Hill. Cue the hysteria from the unusual suspects.
The Education Department announced Monday it has formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX interpretation that gave sex-based discrimination protections to students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Schools now must go back to the Title IX code as held under the previous Trump administration in 2020, which the department says will protect women’s sports.
“Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflect court orders and Congressional intent — reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions. We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.
In effect, this means that biological sex will be the federal standard for Title IX protections, not gender identity or sexual preference.
As covered at RedState earlier, the Supreme Court issued a decision in July that indicated that Title IX does not require schools to allow transgender athletes to compete on teams designated for the opposite biological sex, upholding laws in West Virginia and Idaho restricting girls’ and women’s sports to biological females.
In that ruling, the Supreme Court majority held that Title IX refers to biological sex and not gender identity or sexual orientation.
In a significant 6-3 decision for colleges, universities, and K-12 schools nationwide, the Supreme Court of the United States held in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox that Title IX does not require schools to permit transgender women to compete on women’s sports teams, and that state laws restricting women’s sports participation to biological females do not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In an opinion by Justice Kavanaugh, the Court resolved both cases together and reversed the rulings of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for both the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, and upheld the West Virginia and Idaho laws at issue. [...]
The Court held that the term “sex” in Title IX refers to biological sex as understood at the time of the statute’s enactment and does not encompass gender identity or transgender status. [...]
The Court held that the term “sex” in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the implementing regulations “cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.”
The Supreme Court ruling did not itself impose rules nationwide, however. That leaves battles in states such as California, where state law has allowed transgender students to participate in female sports since 2013.
That being said, the Biden-era Title IX rule was already effectively dead. A federal judge vacated the 2024 rule nationwide in January 2025 after Republican-led states challenged it, and the incoming Trump administration subsequently returned to enforcing the 2020 regulations. Monday's action formally cleans up the regulatory books by rescinding the Biden administration's interpretation.
Congress enacted Title IX in 1972 to prohibit sex discrimination in federally funded education, and its application to athletics transformed opportunities for female athletes over the following decades.
Since returning to office, Trump has made the issue a major enforcement priority. His administration's agreement with the University of Pennsylvania went well beyond prospective policy: Penn agreed to adopt biological-sex definitions for women's athletics, restore Division I records and titles to female swimmers affected by Lia Thomas' participation, and send personalized apology letters to those athletes.