Last week, the Biden administration issued new rules for transgender students under the rubric of Title IX. The rules would block any effort for schools to require students to use the bathroom associated with their birth gender.
The new rule makes it "crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.
"No one should face bullying or discrimination just because of who they are, who they love,” Cardona told reporters on April 19. "Sadly, this happens all too often."
That's true. No one should be bullied or discriminated against. And no one should expect school authorities to accept the idea that anyone can choose their own gender.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) made that clear to Biden.
"We are not gonna let Joe Biden try to inject men into women's activities," DeSantis said Thursday on X. "We are not gonna let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents. And we are not gonna let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida."
Florida’s response to Joe Biden trying to inject gender ideology into education, undermining opportunities for girls and women, violating parents' rights, and abusing his constitutional authority:
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 25, 2024
We will not comply. pic.twitter.com/12pnpOU68Z
The new Title IX rule is surreal when you consider that last week, an exhaustive study of transgender kids in Great Britain made recommendations totally and completely at odds with what's happening in the U.S.
The Cass Report reviewed more than 9,000 transgender youth patient records and came to some startling conclusions. Among other findings, the report recommends that no one under the age of 18 receive any kind of gender-affirming care, including hormone shots, and that “great caution” should be shown for patients under 25.
The report included a variety of recommendations to improve care but concluded that “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.” Consequently, the NHS reversed its decade-long practice of prescribing puberty-suppressing hormones (PSH) to children with gender dysphoria—“a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender of at least six months duration, as manifested” in delineated criteria, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” the NHS said last month. PSH treatment will still be available for participants in clinical trials and at private clinics, although some British lawmakers are now pushing for a ban across the board.
Among the report's findings was the smashing of the transgender lobby's most cherished myth: that unless kids get "gender transition care," including hormones, they are at risk of suicide.
In fact, a study done in Great Britain by "Michael Biggs" showed that there were only four suicides among 15,000 adolescents over a ten-year period. The common myth pushed by the transgender lobby is that "more than half" of transgender kids attempt suicide.
The insidious nature of the new Title IX rule becomes clear when you consider what it allows teachers to do.
For starters: a boy who says he’s a girl must be granted access to the girls’ bathroom or locker room. Because the Biden administration requires no documentation to affirm gender identity, and indeed because it refused to define gender identity at all, a boy could identify as a girl “fluidly.” The federal government protects his right to be a girl only when he enters a girls’ bathroom.
In addition, teachers and students must refer to a gender dysphoric child by her preferred pronouns and alternative name. The Biden regulation magnanimously allows that a “stray” “misgendering” doesn’t automatically violate Title IX. But by logic—and by the administration’s own past enforcement practice—if several people “misgender” a student, or if someone “misgenders” a student several times, then the school risks losing all federal funding if it doesn’t remedy the situation.
It's insane. And you have to wonder when they're going to get around to forming the "gender police" to make sure we're not "misgendering" anyone.
DeSantis is right about resisting Biden's cockamamie rule. Other Republican governors should follow suit. There has to be a limit to this insanity, and if Washington isn't going to set it, then states should develop their own limits.
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