As students throughout the country wrap up the school year, they head into summer with the knowledge that their places of learning will likely be vastly different when they return.
On April 29, President Joe Biden’s Department of Education officially published its sweeping rewrite of the Title IX rule, which will go into effect on August 1. As a result of this new policy, the trend of biological males using women’s restrooms and locker rooms, until now mostly confined to far-left jurisdictions, will now be a protected act in the entire country under federal civil rights law.
As Kristen Waggoner, president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, put it in a recent op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, “Virtually every school in the nation that takes federal money will now have to allow boys who identify as girls to enter girls’ physical education classes, locker rooms, showers and bathrooms. Schools will be compelled to disregard the rights of women and girls in favor of a male’s subjective and sometimes temporary feelings.”
Retired lawyer and psychology professor Joachim Mathias Mannheiner, a prominent figure in shaping youth policy for the German government in the 1980s, told me that Biden’s Title IX rewrite is a “treacherous, upside-down rule.” He added that he believes the new rule will “undermine cohesion in American society,” calling it “utterly divisive and unfair,” especially for women and girls.
Attorney Candice Jackson, who served as Acting Assistant Secretary in the Department of Education during the Trump administration, has also warned that Biden’s Title IX rewrite creates a “corollary legal consequence” for schools. Specifically, the new rules, she said, could imply that schools must consider parents who do not “affirm” their child’s self-professed transgender identity to be abusive and report them to child protective services.
The new Title IX rules will also be particularly detrimental for girls’ sports, denying many the opportunity to compete in school athletics and putting those who do at significantly increased risk of injury.
For instance, during a women’s high school field hockey match in Massachusetts last fall, a male player who identified as a girl hit an opposing player in the face with the ball, causing her to fall to the ground and scream in pain. In February, another male transgender athlete in Massachusetts reportedly injured three girls during a single women’s basketball game, causing that team to forfeit.
In another instance, a female soccer player in Australia had her leg broken in two places by a male who identifies as transgender. According to a report from The Telegraph, the victim was a five-foot-six player who weighed less than 130 pounds, while the male who injured her was six-foot-two and weighed nearly 200 pounds. The injured girl had to retire from her sporting career.
Payton McNabb, a former North Carolina high school volleyball player who was injured by a male during a 2022 match, still suffers from lasting physical and mental injuries.
Men identifying as women have also stolen titles and prizes from female athletes – something which Biden’s Title IX rewrite further paves the way for.
The most famous such case is that of Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer who has spoken out against males competing in women’s sports. In 2022, Riley tied male transgender swimmer Lia Thomas at the NCAA Division I women’s swimming championships. During the awards ceremony, the NCAA denied Gaines her trophy and spot on the podium, instead giving it to Thomas.
Taylor Silverman, a female skateboarder from Michigan, has spoken out about how males identifying as women are now taking over that niche sport as well. In one instance, a male skateboarder who identifies as a woman beat out Silverman for the top spot at an event in 2022, denying her the $5,000 grand prize.
Earlier this month in Oregon, Aayden Gallagher, a male athlete competing in high school women’s track and field events, won the 200-meter race with a time of 25.49 seconds – shattering the prior 30-second state record set by a biological female. It seems unlikely any female will ever be able to beat that time.
“Instead of inclusion, it is a mockery of women’s sports,” Professor Mannheiner said of the implications of Biden’s Title IX rules, adding that moral leaders in American academia needed to be more vocal. He also said that mandating teachers and students use “preferred pronouns,” as is required in the new Title IX rules, amounts to an attack on democracy since it denies free speech.
French philosopher and mathematician Professor Dr. Roul Descoteaux, who is Catholic, told me he believes the Title IX rule is more than just a legal atrocity, and is in fact a “violation of natural law itself – a denial that all cells of the body testify to a person’s real identity.”
“This is an identity which God created for us,” he continued, adding that what Biden is attempting is a form of thought control straight out of George Orwell’s 1984. “I am at a loss for words, but it would take bravery to oppose [the rules]. It is unfair, it is an injustice,” he said.
Injustice, indeed – but soon it will be the law of the land.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
