On August 1, the Biden-Harris administration stealthily began enforcing a new series of Title IX regulations that, beginning this school year, will allow males who claim transgender status to enter women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, receive women’s scholarships, and live in women’s dorm rooms in schools that receive public funds. The new rules will also compel students and faculty to use the “preferred pronouns” of transgender-identifying individuals.
Though the corporate media has been shy to report on this development, parents and families will soon see first-hand just how radical the administration’s Title IX rewrite is. The public backlash could reach a crescendo just as many voters make their final decisions in this November’s elections.
The new Biden-Harris Title IX rules specifically prohibit discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” instead of biological sex—obliterating the legal distinction between men and women. As a result, transgender-identifying individuals are now empowered to sue schools for harassment if they dare to oppose transgender ideology.
Fortunately for American children and parents, federal courts in Kentucky and Louisiana have prohibited the Biden-Harris administration from enforcing the rules in states and schools that have sought to block them. And just last week, the Supreme Court affirmed those rulings, meaning that the administration cannot enforce the Title IX changes in states that have challenged them as legal proceedings continue.
But even with the Supreme Court’s ruling, the legal, political, and cultural battle over gender in public schools is far from over—and although the Biden-Harris rules are temporarily on hold in some states, parents and families have every reason to remain vigilant.
As the campaign season enters its final stretch, the left has been understandably silent about the new rules as they seek to win support from moderate and Independent voters—many of whom are parents of school-age children—in swing states where the rules are in effect, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada.
As soon as students in these states start returning to the classroom in the coming weeks, families will be hard-pressed to ignore the new reality instigated by the Biden-Harris regime. Millions of parents are poised to soon learn that boys are sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with, taking scholarships from, and—in the case of college students—sharing living spaces with their daughters.
In addition to creating dangerous new potential for sexual misconduct, if any female student is uncomfortable with and vocally opposes sharing private spaces with biological males, she is now guilty of discrimination under the new rule.
Whether or not they realize it now, American parents are standing on the precipice of one of the most far-reaching, extremist, and dangerous transformations of the education system in American history.
Given this alarming dynamic, Republicans have every reason to make the left’s sinister Title IX overhaul a major campaign issue as election season enters its final sprint. Should they seize the opportunity, the conservative movement could lay the groundwork for a massive parental protest movement that mirrors the parental rights in education movement that propelled Glenn Youngkin to the Virginia Governor’s Mansion in 2021 and galvanized parents all across the nation.
To make matters worse, the new changes will severely undermine the likelihood that justice will be served in cases of sexual assault. Under the new rules, colleges no longer must involve law enforcement when there is an accusation of sexual assault. Instead, the alleged offense will now be treated as a mere violation of student conduct rules—allowing university officials to act as judge, jury, and executioner.
In addition to denying the accused their constitutional right to due process—effectively denying them the chance to disprove the allegations—this kangaroo court-style system also denies victims the chance to have their case handled by professionals trained to deal with such matters.
Although little polling has been conducted on the rule change, every sign thus far indicates that it is a losing issue with voters. According to a poll conducted by Center Square and Noble Predictive Insights earlier this summer, 48 percent of American voters oppose the changes while only 42 percent are in favor of the overhaul.
“On the issues of bathrooms and locker rooms, the American public has shifted towards the right,” said David Bayler, chief of research at Noble Predictive Insights. “People are generally wary of the most progressive stances on these type of issues in schools, and it’s no coincidence that you often see Republican politicians hammering this very issue and Democratic politicians avoiding it and emphasizing other ones.”
But for American families getting ready to send their children back to school, the fight for preserving women’s spaces and recognizing biological gender differences is far from over. Although the national GOP apparatus has remained largely silent on the matter, now is the perfect time to start emphasizing the issue in hopes of alerting swing voters as to just how radical, dangerous, and sweeping the Kamala Harris agenda truly is.
In a Michigan speech shortly after the rule changes were announced in April, Donald Trump condemned the move as a “radical rewrite” of education rules that will “impose the most extreme left-wing gender ideology on every school in America.”
As America’s future hangs in the balance between left-wing tyranny and a restoration of the quintessential values of family, freedom, and common sense, other Republicans on the ballot this fall would do well to do the same.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
