In its latest move to protect women’s sports, the Department of Education formally rescinded the Biden administration’s 2024 Title IX rule.
“We’re just acknowledging that boys and men are in boys and men’s sports and girls are in theirs,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told OutKick.
The Biden rewrite of Title IX redefined sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation, allowing men in girls’ and women’s restrooms, locker rooms, housing accommodations, and educational programs. It also opened the door for men to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams and endangered education institutions that receive federal funding, but wish to protect women’s spaces.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
Courts had already invalidated the Biden-era regulations, which were enjoined by eight different courts and later vacated by two separate courts.
The Education Department announced at the beginning of the second Trump administration that it would enforce the first Trump administration’s Title IX regulations.
McMahon said Monday’s step “gives clarification to students, teachers, schools, parents.”
“Everyone now knows what the rule is and how everyone is going to abide by it,” she said.
The secretary said the landmark women’s sports regulation now reflects court orders and Congressional intent, reducing parental confusion.
“We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls,” she said in a news release.
Heritage Foundation Education expert Jonathan Butcher said the move will give confidence to state and local policymakers who are trying to protect children.
“Public officials in some areas are still trying to cut parents out of their child’s life over ‘gender’ issues,” he told the Daily Signal. “But this is dangerous because gender interventions are harmful and do not address underlying mental health issues.”
“State and local policymakers will need to continue to watch for attempts to divide families over the issue and threaten the health—mental and physical—of young children,” he added.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
