Judge throws out Biden’s ‘arbitrary’ protections for LGBT+ students

A federal judge has thrown out rule changes designed to protect LGBT+ students from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The rules proposed by President Joe Biden’s administration expanded the scope of Title IX rules that block sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.

Biden’s rule changes sought to clarify that long-standing protections against sex-based discrimination also include harassment and abuse around sexual orientation and gender identity.

The changes were at the center of several legal challenges playing out in roughly half the country. Thursday’s ruling applies nationwide.

In his ruling, Kentucky District Judge Danny Reeves called the rules “arbitrary and capricious.”

“As this Court and others have explained, expanding the meaning of ‘on the basis of sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ turns Title IX on its head,” according to Reeves, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.

“The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex — throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless,” he wrote.

President-elect Donald Trump was expected to rescind Biden-era rules protecting LGBT+ Americans within his first days in office, with a pledge to “keep men out of women’s sports” and plans to prosecute physicians that provide gender-affirming health care to trans youth.

The ruling comes as Republican members of Congress advance legislation to formally amend Title IX definitions to treat gender as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” effectively wiping out the existence of trans or intersex people.

Legislation from Senator Ron Johnson and Tommy Tuberbille would also block schools from receiving federal funding if trans athletes compete in sports that align with their gender identity.

The ruling also arrived weeks after the Biden administration quietly withdrew proposed changes while facing a wave of Republican-led legal challenges.

Republican attorneys general in nearly half of U.S. states filed at least seven legal challenges to Biden’s Title IX changes, clashing with a tide of legislation and volatile campaign rhetoric aimed at denying trans students access to affirming care and gendered sports and bathroom access.

The Education Department’s rule changes “mandate access to showers, locker rooms, and sexual education classes, among others, consistent with an individual’s gender identity,” an approach that “simply does not make sense,” according to Reeves.

Judge Reeves also argued that teachers being asked to use pronouns and names that match a student’s gender identity would violate their constitutional right to free speech.

The Biden administration argued that the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling affirming workplace discrimination protections for LGBT+ people should also extend to students and schools.

Reeves disagreed, stating that Title IX makes it “abundantly clear that discrimination on the basis of sex means discrimination on the basis of being a male or female.”

The Independent has requested comment from the Education Department.

Tennessee’s Republican Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit alongside several Republican attorneys general, called the ruling a “resounding victory for the protection of girls’ privacy in locker rooms and showers, and for the freedom to speak biologically-accurate pronouns.”

Indiana’s Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita said female students “are protected from biological males being able to infringe on their private spaces.”

“All of America is now safe from Biden’s attempt to undermine half a century of landmark protections for women,” Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares added.

Right-wing Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom represented a teenage student and Christian Educators Association International in the lawsuit.

“This is a colossal win for women and girls across the country,” Alliance Defending Freedom president Kristen Waggoner said in a statement. “The Biden administration’s radical attempt to redefine sex not only tossed fairness, safety, and privacy for female students out the window, it also threatened free speech and parental rights.”