Issue Toolkit:

Title 9 Rule Change Toolkit

Background information

Biden's redefinition of "sex"...

About the Rule Change

Note: The deadline to submit a comment was September 12, 2022. As such, the comment portal is now closed. We are leaving the rest of the toolkit published for reference.

Biden’s Department of Education proposed a new rule that puts women’s safety and privacy at risk, and deprives women of athletic and professional opportunities. It has done so by radically rewriting Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex in any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. It is enforced by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

For fifty years, Title IX has been enforced using the self-evident definition of “sex” –– a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits.

The new rule by Biden’s Department of Education has redefine “sex” as used in Title IX to include “sex stereotypes, sex-related characteristics (including intersex traits), pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

The consequences of such a rule change is monumental:

  • Deprives women of privacy and safety. Men who identify as women will be allowed access to women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, dorms, overnight accommodation, sports, or any other sex-segregated activity at educational instutions that receive federal financial aid.

  • It contradicts state laws in thirteen states that protect students and prevent male athletes from competing in women’s sports. States like Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, South Dakota, and Texas have all passed legislation that protects women's sports. The Biden administration will cost taxpayers millions of dollars in court costs.

  • Negatively impacts educational and career opportunities for women. One study revealed that 94% of senior female executives played competitive sports. By allowing males to compete in women’s sports, it doesn’t just impact their scholarships, but their opportunity to get on the playing field in the first place. This will hurt women in the long run.

  • Distorts justice and undermines due process protections for the accused. The guilty should be punished, but justice requires a fair process. Biden’s rule will strip those accused of sexual assault or harassment of their right to be represented by counsel, to introduce evidence, or to cross-examine witnesses during the adjudication of sexual assault and sexual harassment hearings on school campuses.

  • Harms childhood development by redefining sex and gender. The worst impacts of this rule change go beyond sports and trophies. Indoctrinating children in their most formative years with the Left’s radical gender-ideology will cause irreparable harm. Up to 98% of children who struggle with their sex as a boy or girl come to accept their sex by adulthood. Our boys and girls need to be nurtured and educated, not taught to question fundamental facts of their biology.

Particularly in the realm of women’s sports, far-Left activists claim that men can compete fairly with women given the proper hormone suppression therapy. This suggestion is wrong.

Men possess immutable physical advantages over women like greater lung capacity, higher bone density, and greater muscle mass. These distinct characteristics cannot be suppressed by hormone therapy, which makes the participation of men in women’s sports inherently unfair.

The Biden administration is not only out-of step with biological reality, they are out of step with the American people. Heritage Action’s 2021 polling found two-thirds of American voters across the country think boys and men who say they identify as transgender should not be allowed to compete in girls’ and women’s athletics.

Read More: Analysis from The Heritage Foundation

This issue is bigger than just sports.

Instructing children to question their own gender and biology at young and developing ages is a radical new experiment in social engineering. It’s part of a political agenda that is being pushed by “woke” activists and is completely untethered from actual science.

For the radical Left, encouraging young children to question their sexual identity is not a stand-alone issue, but part of a larger effort to dismantle American culture and replace it with marxist ideologies as taught by critical gender theory and critical race theory.

It’s why marxist organizations like Black Lives Matter Inc. publicly reject the nuclear family alongside its push to defund the police. Americans have recognized defunding the police is a failed idea. Likewise, rejecting families, redefining gender, and erasing protections for our children are failed ideas.

Consistently, the Left’s “woke” activists are wrong and destroy everything they touch. Their policies have brought crime rates in our cities to record highs—and their agenda is destroying our schools and harming our children too.

Key Points

  • Title IX was meant to promote women’s athletics. Biden’s regulatory rule to redefine “sex” to include “gender identity” will upend Title IX and significantly harm biological women competing in sports.

  • Women will lose out on scholarships, resulting in lost educational and career opportunities. This new rule will allow biological men to rob women of not just their trophies, but their scholarships too. This impacts corporate boardrooms—one study revealed that 94% of senior female executives played competitive sports.

  • This rule change puts women and girls at risk of serious physical harm. Women and girls will be forced to occupy the most private of places with men—including dorm rooms, locker rooms, bathrooms, overnight accommodations, and any other safe, sex-segregated areas.

  • Students will be in jeopardy of losing funding at their schools. The Left claims to be pro-student, but any school that maintains safe and separate bathrooms and locker rooms for males and females will be at risk of losing federal funding.

  • This issue is bigger than just sports, and it affects our sons as well as our daughters. Teaching children to question their biology and gender is untested and unscientific. Young children and developing adolescents are being harmed by this woke political agenda. After sex-reassignment surgery, transgender-identified people are nearly 20 times more likely to die from suicide than the general population.

  • Don’t redefine our daughters and sons’ identities. Up to 98% of children who struggle with their sex as a boy or girl come to accept their sex by adulthood. Our boys and girls need educators and mentors to support parents as they raise strong, loving, and intelligent men and women. At school, students should receive education and reinforcement, not a government imposed identity crisis.

  • Creates a path for abortion legalization via activist judges or federal bureaucrat. In their list of proposed revisions to Title IX, the Department of Education includes “pregnancy or related conditions” under “discrimination based on sex.” If a liberal, activist judge or federal bureaucrat deems failure to provide access to abortion as discriminatory, then colleges and universities could be required to provide abortions. Campus health offices could become dispensaries for abortion poison pills.

Social Posts (remember to insert the social handle of your member)

Tweet This:

Title IX was meant to protect women’s sports, not undermine them! .[MEMBER], please protect women’s sports and STOP Biden’s @usedgov from redefining “sex” in Title IX. Keep women’s sports fair and competitive!

Tweet This:

.[MEMBER], women don’t want to share their bathrooms, locker rooms, dorm rooms, and sports with men. Stop Biden’s @usedgov from changing the definition of “sex” in Title IX!

Tweet This:

.[MEMBER], students should receive education and reinforcement, not a government imposed identity crisis. Oppose Biden and the @usedgov from redefining “sex” and pushing a woke gender ideology in our classrooms.

Tweet This:

The Biden administration and Department of Education are pushing a new regulatory rule to redefine “sex” to also include “gender identity.” It will hurt women’s sports, end safe and separate bathrooms for boys and girls, and freely allow the Left to push their woke gender ideology in our schools. Help save our schools: [link to toolkit] #SaveOurSchools

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Sample Letter to the Editor

Far-left activists in Biden’s Department of Education are changing the definition of “sex” in Title IX –– and the consequences will be detrimental to women.

Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex in any educational program receiving Federal financial assistance. The vast, vast majority of public schools and colleges receive such assistance and thus fall under the purview of Title IX.

For the entirety of its existence, Title IX has been enforced using the self-evident definition of “sex.” That is, a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits.

Now, Biden’s radicals in the Department of Education want “sex” to include “sex stereotypes, sex-related characteristics (including intersex traits), pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” Such a change is ill-advised.

Schools will be forced to allow any man who identifies as a woman to participate in women’s sports and share women’s private spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, dorm rooms, or any other sex-segregated area.

Women will be especially affected when it comes to sports. One study revealed that 94% of senior female executives played competitive sports. Yet women’s sports will cease to be competitive if men are allowed to participate.

Males have inherent physical advantages that cannot be suppressed by hormone therapy (greater lung capacity, higher bone density, and greater muscle mass). Allowing men to compete in women’s sports will destroy the notion of “competitive” and hurt women in the long run.

And to make matters worse, the Federal government will likely spend millions of dollars defending the indefensible in court. Many states have passed laws banning men from competing in women’s sports. This clash will most certainly set up lengthy and costly litigation –– all of which is funded by taxpayer money.

Biden’s new Title IX rule puts women’s safety, privacy, and equality at risk. The rule will hurt the very people Title IX was intended to protect.

Americans should oppose it and Congress should stop this disaster in its tracks.