Biden’s Title IX transgender sports rules delayed due to 240K comments.

The Biden Administration’s Transgender Sports Rules Delayed Due to Public Comments

The Biden administration’s proposed rules on transgender sports have been delayed after receiving over 240,000 public comments between April 12 and May 15. The rules would limit how far states can go with gender-based athletics restrictions. The Department of Education announced an updated timeline, with an anticipated date of October 2023 for the final Title IX rule.

Proposal Details

The proposal requires schools to allow elementary students to compete in sports based on their gender identity, while leaving some wiggle room for high school and college sports to be decided by individual schools. The White House billed the proposal as a way to back transgender athletes, but Republicans criticized it as forcing schools to allow men to compete against women and girls.

Conservative Groups Celebrate Delay

Conservative groups, including Heritage Action, celebrated the delay as a win. The lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation was one of multiple conservative groups that launched portals soliciting comments against the move. The update made clear that the department is still pursuing the new rules, saying the Biden-Harris administration is “committed to ensuring all students are guaranteed an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex.”

Advocacy Groups Praise the Rule

A number of gay and transgender advocacy groups praised the rule in submitted comments, including a coalition that included the Trevor Project and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “The rule as proposed effectively would prohibit any policy restricting the ability of transgender students to participate in school sports in elementary and middle school, and it would permit any such restrictive policies in high school only in rare circumstances and only at highly competitive levels,” the coalition wrote in its comment.

Impact on Schools

If the new federal rule is implemented and schools defy it, they could lose federal funds. Overall, 20 states have enacted legislation to ban biologically male students from competing in high school women’s sports, according to the Associated Press.

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