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In 'Attack on Trans Students,' Federal Judge Strikes Down Biden's Title IX Protections
The Republican judge cited the Supreme Court's recent decision that stripped federal agencies of their regulatory power.
Jan 10, 2025
In a decision that was partially underpinned by the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of a 40-year-old legal precedent last year, a federal judge in Kentucky on Thursday struck down President Joe Biden's expanded protections for transgender youths and other vulnerable students, saying the administration overstepped in introducing the rules.
Chief Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky ruled that the Education Department did not have the authority to expand the protections provided by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which since 1972 has prohibited sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding.
The ruling applies to the new definition in Title IX that was proposed by the department last April, which prohibited "discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex-related characteristics (including intersex traits), pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity."
Right-wing activists and politicians objected in particular to the protections for gender identity.
The rules stopped short of requiring schools to allow transgender students to play on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity—a key fixation of the far right—but required schools and staffers to accept students' identities on a daily basis, for example by calling them by their preferred pronouns rather than according to their sex assigned at birth.
The rules have been blocked in 26 states as Republican leaders in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and other states have filed legal challenges.
In his ruling, Reeves, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, wrote that "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 said.
Reeves wrote that "the final rule and its corresponding regulations exceed the department's authority," citing Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court case in which the court's right-wing majority overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine. The legal precedent held that judges should defer to federal agencies' reasonable interpretation of a law if Congress has not specifically addressed the issue at hand.
The judge also rejected the Education Department's position that protections for transgender people against workplace discrimination—which were established in 2020 in the Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia—should also apply in schools that receive federal funding.
At Law Dork, journalist Chris Geidner wrote that Reeves rejected "Bostock's application to Title IX and [cited] his newfound authority in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo to determine 'the statute's single, best meaning' himself."
"As such, he took that authority to decide what Title IX means, the department's view notwithstanding, and set aside the rule," wrote Geidner.
Reeves also wrote that requiring teachers and schools to use students' preferred pronouns and names "offends the First Amendment" and violates the free speech rights of teachers.
That assertion, said Jennifer Berkshire, author of The Education Wars, "really shows you how fake the rhetoric of 'parents rights' is."
"The idea that using a student's preferred pronouns is in any way an imposition on teachers is patently absurd," added Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Massachusetts. "If you can handle using nicknames, you can handle correct pronouns."
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, said the judge turned "longstanding legal precedent on its head in a direct, disproportionate attack on trans students," and noted that the harm caused by the ruling will extend beyond transgender students.
"Today's decision displays extraordinary disregard for students who are most vulnerable to discrimination and are in the most need for federal protections under the Title IX rule," said Goss Graves. "The Biden administration's Title IX rule is essential to ensure that all students—including survivors of sexual assault and harassment, pregnant and parenting students, and LGBTQI+ students—are able to learn in a safe and welcoming environment. With these protections already removed in some states, students who experience sexual assault have had their complaints dismissed, or worse, been punished by their schools after reporting; pregnant students have been unfairly penalized for taking time off to give birth to a child; and LGBTQI+ students have faced vicious bullying and harassment just for being who they are."
Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of the LGBTQ rights group GLSEN, told The New York Timesthat the ruling "shows a stunning indifference to marginalized youth facing harassment and discrimination, as well as hardworking school administrators and principals who are working to build safer learning environments for their increasingly diverse student populations."
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Defending Trans Rights Is Good Politics
The Democrats' problem isn't "wokeness," but rather their failure to counter the Republicans' cruel anti-trans narrative.
Dec 23, 2024
In the wake of the Democrats' devastating loss last month, there has been no shortage of arguments and analyses about what went wrong and how the party should move forward. It has been deeply concerning to see some of these arguments taking Republican fearmongering and propaganda as a basis, particularly on the subject of transgender rights. Falling for Republican propaganda will not only bring terrible harm to the most vulnerable members of society; I believe it is also a losing political strategy for Democrats. Instead, the Democratic Party must be vigilant against Republican propaganda, and must proactively counter it.
The Democrats' failures in messaging on transgender rights were evident throughout the campaign. Despite the Biden-Harris administration's progress - such as signing executive orders aimed at curbing discrimination, expanding health care access, and raising awareness of the societal barriers and violence that transgender people regularly experience - the Harris campaign appeared to studiously avoid discussing transgender people at all.
Democrats must make clear to the public that while Republicans cynically claim to be "protecting children," they are in fact doing the opposite.
One of the few exceptions, and thus the most visible mention of trans people by Kamala Harris during the campaign, was in her October 16 interview on Fox News. When the host, Bret Baier, challenged the Biden-Harris administration's policy supporting gender-affirming medical care for prisoners, Harris had an opportunity to make a defense on moral grounds. Instead, she counterattacked by pointing out that the Trump administration followed the same laws, and thus the argument was "throwing...stones when you're living in a glass house." By doing so, she implicitly condoned the narrative that gender-affirming care is a luxury rather than a necessity, or, worse, somehow wrong or shameful, rather than a fundamental human right that should be afforded to all, including incarcerated people.
Setting aside for a moment the moral aspect, try to coldly consider the political message this phrasing sent to voters. After the provision of gender-affirming care was presented as though it were a problem, the Democrats seemed to be saying, 'it is a problem that both we and the Trump administration failed to deal with.' Meanwhile, the Republicans were promising to 'solve' it in the next administration. So why would an uninformed voter, after hearing both parties apparently acknowledge a 'problem' but only one party offer to 'solve' it, be expected to support the Democrats?
If Democrats want to be seen as competent, then they must stop catering to the Republicans' fearmongering and dehumanizing narrative and instead proactively counter it. Democrats must stand up and say yes, our policy is to support the provision of gender-affirming care, and we are proud of this policy. It is not a problem, but a protection of our citizens' basic human rights. The Democrats already campaigned on messages of freedom, self-determination, and bodily autonomy; these are precisely the values that must be applied not only to cis Americans, but to trans Americans as well. It is indeed somewhat astonishing that the Democrats failed to consistently articulate as simple a concept as: our platform of freedom and bodily autonomy also applies to trans people.
Of course, Harris was not the only high-ranking Democrat to weaken their own political position by failing to stand up for trans rights. Senate candidates Colin Allred and Sherrod Brown both ran television ads legitimizing Republican fearmongering about trans kids playing in school sports. After the election, Representative Seth Moulton went farther, portraying trans children as a physical danger to cis children, saying he didn't want his daughters to be "run over on a playing field" by trans students. Trans kids already suffer from bullying, abuse, and depression at significantly higher rates than their cis counterparts, and it's not hard to see why, when even Democratic lawmakers are demonizing them.
Democrats... appear to implicitly accept the premise of the supposed 'problem,' but do not offer a solution. Again, how is a rational but uninformed voter supposed to respond?
Again, let us try to dispassionately consider the potential political effect of such messaging (absurd as it is to set aside the ethical aspects of politicians attacking already marginalized children). The Republicans claim that trans kids are some sort of malign threat, and advertise policies to neutralize this 'threat' by denying them legal protections, further isolating them, and trying to erase the very existence of their identities. In other words, Republicans have presented a (manufactured) 'problem' and a (monstrous) 'solution.' Democrats, meanwhile, appear to implicitly accept the premise of the supposed 'problem,' but do not offer a solution. Again, how is a rational but uninformed voter supposed to respond?
The only logical path forward is for Democrats to explicitly renounce the Republicans' false premises. Trans children are not a threat to cis children, whether on the playground or in the bathroom, and bullying of trans kids not only by other students but by adult politicians is an outrage. Democrats must make clear to the public that while Republicans cynically claim to be "protecting children," they are in fact doing the opposite.
Unfortunately, there is no time to lose. Trump has announced a stream of extremist anti-trans appointees to key administration roles, including Secretary of Education (Linda McMahon), Secretary of Health and Human Services (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.), Secretary of Defense (Pete Hegseth), and Secretary of State (Marco Rubio), among many others, who will enable the Republicans to make good on their promises to destroy protections for trans students, prevent access to healthcare and housing, purge transgender servicepeople from the military, promote anti-trans bigotry abroad, and deny transgender people the ability to openly exist in society. Not to mention the possibility of using the military to go after Trump's "enemy from within," which presumably includes trans people and their allies, whom Trump described as representing "a great evil."
The Democrats must unify to counter the Republicans' anti-trans propaganda and impending anti-trans agenda, not only to prevent the further oppression of millions of transgender Americans, but also to maintain credibility as a political movement.
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'Slap in the Face to Working-Class Families': Senate Sends Biden $895 Billion Military Bill
"We do not need to spend almost a trillion dollars on the military, while half a million Americans are homeless and children go hungry," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Dec 18, 2024
The United States Senate overwhelmingly passed an $895 billion military funding bill on Wednesday as critics blasted what many called misplaced spending priorities and highly controversial provisions that ban gender-affirming health coverage for children of active-duty service members and prohibit the Pentagon from citing casualty figures issued by the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Senators voted 85-14 for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2025. The following senators voted against the legislation: Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the vice president-elect, did not vote on the bill.
"We do not need to spend almost a trillion dollars on the military, while half a million Americans are homeless and children go hungry," Sanders explained earlier this month.
The peace group CodePink said it was "disappointed" by the Senate's passage of the NDAA, "which allocates nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars to weapons and warfare while essential services like healthcare, education, food, and housing remain underfunded."
"Half of the budget will go directly to the pockets of private military companies in the form of contracts and weapons deals," the group continued. "On top of the massive topline and the large allocation to private companies, the Pentagon has never been able to pass an audit. Much like every Pentagon budget before, this money will be largely unaccounted for, with very little transparency."
"This budget is a huge slap in the face to working-class families who are struggling to make ends meet," CodePink added.
An amendment introduced on Monday by Baldwin and co-sponsored by two dozen of her Democratic colleagues "to remove language that would strip away service members' parental rights to access medically necessary healthcare for their transgender children" failed to pass.
Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Baldwin said that Congress has "broken" its commitment to the troops "because some Republicans decided that gutting the rights of our service members to score cheap political points was more worthy."
"We're talking about parents who are serving our country in uniform, having the right to consult their family's doctor and get the healthcare they want and need for their transgender children," she added. "Some folks poisoned this bill and turned their backs on those in service and the people that we represent."
Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy at Advocates for Trans Equality, said in a statement Wednesday that "every military family deserves respect and access to essential healthcare—free from the interference of political agendas."
Hunt continued:
Denying lifesaving, medically necessary care to trans members of military families creates profound hardships, forcing service members to make impossible choices between their duty and the health and well-being of their loved ones. Politicizing access to evidence-based healthcare undermines the principles of fairness, dignity, and respect that our nation aspires to. No one should have to choose between their duty and protecting their family.
By passing this harmful legislation, the Senate has failed our service members and their families. This decision prioritizes political gamesmanship over the dignity, rights, and well-being of those who serve our nation and sets a dangerous precedent of governmental overreach into decisions that should remain between doctors and families.
Some advocates including Hunt want President Joe Biden to veto the bill.
"If signed by the president, the passage of the NDAA will mark the first piece of federal legislation to restrict access to medically necessary healthcare for transgender adolescents," Hunt added. "It would be heartbreaking for an administration that has sought to advance the rights of LGBTQI+ Americans more than any other to date, to enact a law that would endanger countless trans youth. We urge President Biden to take a strong stance for trans youth and their families and veto this bill."
Congress has passed the NDAA, which contained a provision banning the coverage of gender affirming care for the children of active duty military. This is the first anti-LGBTQ bill to pass congress in almost 3 decades but certainly won't be the last. This will be Biden's legacy.
— Alejandra Caraballo ( @esqueer.net) December 18, 2024 at 10:02 AM
Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson said that "President Biden has the power to put a stop to this cruelty."
"He should make good on his promises to protect LGBTQ+ Americans, defend military service members and their families, and ensure this country's politics reflect the best of who we are," Robinson added. "President Biden must veto this bill."
The NDAA also contains a provision prohibiting the Department of Defense from officially citing "fatality figures that are derived by United States-designated terrorist organizations" or governmental entities or organizations that rely upon such data. Critics say the measure is meant to censor the truth about Israel's 14-month assault on Gaza, which has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing. Various United Nations agencies, international charities and rights groups, and even the Israeli military and U.S. State Department have cited Gaza Health Ministry casualty figures, which have been deemed accurate—and likely an undercount—by experts around the world, including Israeli military intelligence and U.S. officials.
"In other words," Security Policy Reform Institute co-founder Stephen Semler said of the provision, "it's effectively a ban on talking about deaths in Gaza."
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