Judge blocks Biden gender identity protection rule in 6 states

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CNA Staff, Jun 18, 2024 / 13:15 pm (CNA).

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a new Biden Title IX rule in six states that included “gender identity” in Title IX’s long-standing protection against discrimination by sex.

“There are two sexes: male and female,” began Chief Judge Danny Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in his opinion.

In his ruling, Reeves said the rule was an attempt to “dramatically alter the purpose” of the law, which was originally set to protect women’s equal opportunity to education. 

The U.S. Department of Education issued new regulations in April that radically redefined long-standing federal sex discrimination policy under federal Title IX provisions. The new rules in part redefined “sex discrimination” under Title IX to include protections for “gender identity.” Title IX rules apply to any educational institutions that accept federal money. 

Reeves halted the enforcement of Biden’s changes to Title IX in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, explaining that Title IX was set to enable women to receive equal educational opportunities. 

“The new rule contravenes the plain text of Title IX by redefining ‘sex’ to include gender identity, violates government employees’ First Amendment rights, and is the result of arbitrary and capricious rulemaking,” Reeves wrote. 

The ruling follows that of another federal judge who temporarily blocked the new rule in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana following April lawsuits by the states. More than a dozen other states have pending lawsuits against the rule.

The new law bans “different treatment or separation on the basis of sex,” which includes a prohibition on any policy or practice that “prevents a person from participating in an education program or activity consistent with their gender identity.”

Opponents have argued that the law could damage the safety of women’s spaces such as bathrooms, sports, and locker rooms.

At the recent U.S. bishops’ conference, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the conference, reiterated the incompatibility of “sex change” with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

“Teaching about the need to respect the natural order of the human person, Pope Francis affirmed that ‘creation is prior tous and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” he said, quoting Pope Francis.

In April, the bishops came out against a New Biden HHS Obamacare rule for advancing an “ideological view of sex.”

“These regulations … advance an ideological view of sex that, as the Holy See has noted, denies the most beautiful and most powerful difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference,” Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, said in the April 30 press release.