On the 50th anniversary of Title IX’s inception, the Biden Administration announced new provisions that extended the federal law’s reach to protect LGBTQ+ students. The new provisions are also a win for victim’s rights advocates who are lauding the dismantling of previous Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ additions to Title IX. Unfortunately, the policy fails to address the needs of transgender students whose participation in athletics has faced extreme Republican ire.
Under DeVos, Title IX shifted wildly to protect the rights of the accused while hanging victims out to dry. A statement by the Department of Education accused DeVos’ Title IX rules of “weaken[ing] protections for survivors of sexual assault and diminish[ing] the promise of an education free from discrimination.” Undoing these provisions, which required colleges to hold live hearings and narrowed the definition of discrimination until it was almost invisible, was long overdue. Now, Title IX recognizes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. There is a new and expanded definition of sexual harassment that does not further the cover-up of less offensive misconduct. Additionally, colleges will no longer be required to hold live hearings that force victims to relive traumatic experiences or subject them to harassing questions. This change is essential as the previous model was criticized for discouraging survivors from reporting discrimination, harassment and assault.
Despite the necessity and importance of these changes, Title IX still falls short. In April 2023, the Biden administration released a proposal that would prevent all schools from enacting bans on transgender athletes. At the time, 16 states already had bans on participation in high school interscholastic sports in place. This proposal mandated that any federally funded school or college would be barred from banning transgender athletes from playing on a team that aligned with their gender identity. This addition was notably absent from the changes announced a year later.
The outright lack of protection for transgender athletes makes it appear as though the Biden administration’s release of their proposal was a political move rather than a serious effort to advance the rights of trans-student-athletes. This becomes especially convincing when looking at the serious drawbacks of this proposal that could have given schools a legal basis for banning transgender athletes from more competitive teams. The proposal used language that mirrored right-wing rhetoric, which could be used to rationalize and advocate for these bans.
This issue appears to have been turned into a campaign issue rather than what it is: a human rights issue. The major parties are taking shots at each other to score political points as the Biden Administration and House Republicans face this issue with insincerity and a lack of humanity. The House recently passed a bill this month that would ban federally funded schools and colleges from allowing transgender athletes to join a team consistent with their gender identity despite the fact that this bill won’t make it past both a Democratic Senate and the White House. The House passed a bill that devalues 50 years’ worth of civil rights legislation for nothing more than a line in a speech at a county fair.
Things are better in California, though there has been significant conflict when it comes to participation in high school athletics. In 2023, two students did not show up for a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) track and field ceremonies after becoming the target of a transphobic online harassment campaign. CIF condemned the harassment and expressed extreme disappointment that the runners felt so unsafe that they no longer felt competing was an option. While incidences like these run rampant across state borders, California thankfully does not have state laws banning transgender athletes from participating on a team consistent with their gender identity. In 2013, however, A.B. 1266 was signed into law, allowing transgender students to use bathrooms and join sports teams that align with their gender identity. CIF guidelines also support this policy. California colleges also allow student-athletes to play on teams that are consistent with their gender identity, and the state’s protections for transgender students go further than the new Title IX provisions.
The policies that bar transgender students from participating in sports are isolating and cruel, forgetful of the fact that this is a human issue. It’s tragic that this has been transformed into little more than a campaign fight that both parties have no intention of actually solving and only intend to use to gut each other in the press.
