
RALEIGH — The Biden administration’s Title IX rule change that redefined sex to include “gender identity” was dealt a final blow by a federal judge on Jan. 9.
The rule change, which took effect Aug. 1, 2024, was rendered invalid nationwide by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky Chief Judge Danny Reeves.
In his the ruling involving Tennessee’s lawsuit against former Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Reeves said the Biden Department of Education had “exceeded” its authority in redefining sexual discrimination.
“Congress gave the Department authority to issue rules, regulations, and orders to effectuate Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination consistent with the objectives of the statute,” wrote Reeves. “However, the Department exceeded that authority in issuing the Final Rule and the text of Title IX shows why.”
Reeves went on to write, “Put simply, there is nothing in the text or statutory design of Title IX to suggest that discrimination “on the basis of sex” means anything other than it has since Title IX’s inception—that recipients of federal funds under Title IX may not treat a person worse than another similarly-situated individual on the basis of the person’s sex, i.e., male or female.”
The judge also found the rule violates the First Amendment by potentially compelling speech regarding pronouns as well as the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution by imposing ambiguous conditions on federal funding.
“While Title IX sought to level the playing field between men and women, it is rife with exceptions that allow males and females to be separated based on the enduring physical differences between the sexes… throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless,” Reeves wrote.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti reacted, calling it a “huge win.”
“This is a huge win for Tennessee, for common sense, and for women and girls across America,” said Skrmetti in a press release. “The court’s ruling is yet another repudiation of the Biden administration’s relentless push to impose a radical gender ideology through unconstitutional and illegal rulemaking. Because the Biden rule is vacated altogether, President Trump will be free to take a fresh look at our Title IX regulations when he returns to office.”
The ruling also garnered a reaction from Riley Gaines, a 12 time All-American swimmer out of the University of Kentucky who has spent the past several years advocating for the protection of women’s sports from being taken over by males claiming to be transgender women.
“Huge win for girls and women everywhere!!!” Gaines wrote in a post on X.
Over the past three years, Gaines has testified on the topic in front of Congress and numerous state legislatures, including North Carolina. Gaines is also one of 16 female student athletes last March who sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) over the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports.
Reeves’ ruling and the Biden administration’s Federal Register withdrawal request late last December will both arguably impact the lawsuit filed against the NCAA, but also a lawsuit filed by the Campaign for Southern Equality, Youth OUTright WNC, and PFLAG Asheville over the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act passed by the North Carolina legislature in June 2023.
Former Governor Roy Cooper had vetoed the Act, but it was later overridden in August. In his veto message, claimed, “We don’t need politicians inflaming their political culture wars by making broad, uninformed decisions about an extremely small number of vulnerable children that are already handled by a robust system that relies on parents, schools and sports organizations.”
Gaines testified ahead of the passage of the Act and later urged lawmakers to override Cooper’s veto. Gaines was joined by Payton McNabb, a female volleyball player from Cherokee County who was seriously injured by a male opponent who claimed to be a transgender female.
In 2022, McNabb was knocked unconscious when the player spiked the ball into her head and she exhibited what’s known as a fencing response, an indicator of traumatic brain injury.
School districts may also now find a need to revisit policies enacted that specifically aligned with the Biden administration’s Title IX rewrite.
One example in North Carolina is Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS), which aligned it discrimination and bullying policy to the Title IX rewrite in July 2024. Under the WCPSS policy change, it can be considered sexual harassment if students or staff fails to use preferred pronouns or for misgendering someone. Additionally, the use of any spaces based on biological sex, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, could also be considered sexual harassment.