Following two years of legal defense by Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, the Trump Administration's Department of Education has reversed a Biden-era rule regarding Title IX. The previous rule had expanded the definition of sex discrimination to include "gender identity." The Department will now enforce the 2020 guidelines for Title IX, which aim to protect opportunities for girls and women in K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.
This decision aligns with a recent ruling from the United States Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky that deemed the 2024 re-write of Title IX as "unlawful." This ruling came after Republican attorneys general nationwide challenged the rule. The 2024 version had allowed biological males access to women's bathrooms and locker rooms and mandated the use of preferred pronouns, which was contested as a violation of free speech.
President Trump also signed an Executive Order banning males from participating in sports teams that do not align with their biological sex. This Order is titled "Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports" and follows Idaho's HB500 law from 2020, which similarly banned men from playing in women's sports. Attorney General Labrador is currently defending this law in Hecox v. Little.
Attorney General Labrador stated, “This is a fundamental rejection of the radical agenda that had been pushed onto communities and schools across our country.” He added that these developments are significant victories for female student athletes' safety, privacy rights, free speech, and women's sports nationwide.
The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights made this decision following an Executive Order from President Trump on January 20th. This order directed all executive branch agencies to "enforce all sex-protective laws" based on "the reality" that there are "two sexes, male and female," asserting these are immutable facts.