Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on Monday that his state would not abide by the Biden administration's new guidelines for transgender students in the revised Title IX rules published last week.
Texas becomes the second state to defy the Biden administration's new Title IX rules on transgender students. Last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made it clear that his state would not comply with the new rules.
"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."
Related: DeSantis Tells Biden That Florida 'Will Not Comply' With New Title IX Rules for Transgender Students
Abbott's objections were simple and to the point.
Congress wrote Title IX to protect women. Biden, with no authority to do so, rewrote Title IX to protect men who identify as women.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) April 29, 2024
This tramples Texas laws that prohibit men in women’s sports.
I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore Biden’s illegal dictate. pic.twitter.com/4G1UXNGWKL
“I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore your illegal dictate,” Abbott continued. “Your rewrite of Title IX not only exceeds your constitutional authority, it also tramples laws that I signed to protect the integrity of women’s sports by prohibiting men from competing against female athletes. Texas will fight to protect those laws and to deny your abuse of authority.”
Laws passed in more than a dozen Republican-led states prevent transgender students from using school restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity or ban teachers and students to disregard a transgender person’s name and pronouns. Adhering to such laws may violate the new Title IX regulations, a senior administration official told The Hill, if doing so creates a hostile environment.
In Texas, Abbott signed two laws aimed at prohibiting transgender women from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity in public schools and in universities. The Education Department unveiled a proposal last April governing athletics eligibility that would prohibit schools from adopting policies like the ones in Texas, but the Biden administration has yet to finalize the rule.
Biden's nascent attempt to allow transgender individuals to compete on girls' teams is not going to be published until after the election, for obvious reasons.
The overriding question is, Does the federal government possess the constitutional authority to dictate policies based on the controversial belief that anyone can choose their sex? Federal anti-discrimination statutes recognize transgenderism as far as equality in the workplace. What the Biden administration is trying to do is graft the Supreme Court decision recognizing transgenderism in the workplace onto educational institutions.
In its final interpretation of Title IX, the Biden administration sought to extend a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case decision related to workplace discrimination to students. The high court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that Title VII, a civil rights law that bars employment discrimination on the basis of sex, applied to gay and transgender workers.
The Title IX changes also walk back rules set during the Trump administration that required “live hearings” in which students accused of sexual misconduct could question accusers in a courtroom-like setting. The Biden administration kept Trump-era provisions that allow informal resolutions and prohibit penalties against students until an investigation is complete.
The new guidelines are a legal stretch and will probably be struck down by the current Supreme Court. But unless there's a radical rethinking regarding the wisdom of current gender identity public policy, it will be hard to hold back the flood forever.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member