Raleigh, NC – North Carolina is the only state in the south where President Joe Biden’s executive order changing the interpretation of Title IX took effect on Thursday, August 1.
The gender rules rewrite expands sex-based discrimination definitions to include gender identity and sexual orientation. It opens bathroom and locker room usage at schools based on an individual’s perceived gender identity. Title IX was initially implemented in 1972 to protect individuals from sexual discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal funds, ensuring women sports opportunities and fairness.
Pending litigation has paused the new Department of Education rules from going into effect in over half of the 50 states.
A federal appeals court stopped the rule from taking effect in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina this week, bringing the total to 26 states that are under litigation barring the implementation of the Title IX rewrite. While every other state in the south, including Virginia and Tennessee, has paused implementing the rule, North Carolina, is the only southern state where the federal government will be able to enforce it.
Sexual harassment has also been re-phrased as sex-based harassment, something that could infringe on the First Amendment right to free speech. In July, the Wake County Public School System passed updated policies in preparation for the adoption of Title IX. Board members say they have a legal obligation to follow the changes by August 1, or they could face fines up to the full amount of the federal dollars they receive
“Redefining sex is a political agenda,” board member Cheryl Caulfield rebuked. “This new rule to Title IX undermines the very thing it was set up to do. Women fought hard for these rights. It absolutely erodes the foundation and its purpose and removes the very protections it was created to foster.”
SEE ALSO: Pronoun police? Wake County schools adopt Biden’s new Title IX gender language policies
Schools in Kansas, Wyoming, Utah, and Alaska have been barred from implementing the rules after a judge issued an injunction following a federal lawsuit from the group Moms for Liberty. Brooke Weiss, chapter chair of the Mecklenburg County Moms for Liberty in North Carolina, said most parents do not support the new rule.
“Parents overwhelmingly do not agree with the new Biden/Harris Title IX regulations,” Weiss said. “Women deserve to be safe and feel comfortable in private spaces and sports competitions. Just today we saw a female athlete’s dreams shattered when a male punched her in the face breaking her nose in an Olympic boxing match. What is it going to take to stop this madness?”
Weiss is referring to the viral video of an Italian woman forfeiting the olympic boxing match just 46 seconds into the fight. The 25-year-old received two punches from a biological man who was allowed to compete in the women’s category. She refused to shake her opponent’s hand and fell to the canvas sobbing. She said she had never been hit so hard before in her life.
Female athletes associated with the Independent Women’s Forum, a group also behind recent litigation challenging the change to gender definitions, have traveled the nation denouncing the Title IX rewrite and the potential consequences. The group includes North Carolina’s Payton McNabb, who was severely injured by a transgender opponent during a North Carolina high school volleyball game in 2022 and has since become an activist for protecting women’s sports.
IWF held a press call on Wednesday to discuss the implementation of the new Title IX rule and its devastating impact on women. McNabb spoke, as well as Riley Gaines, the 12-time all-American swimmer who is suing the NCAA for allowing transgender Lia Thomas to compete at the national championships in 2022.
“While the Biden-Harris administration disingenuously claims that their new rule doesn’t apply to sports, they’ve established the default position that school activities limited to women only or men only are presumptively discriminatory,” said Gaines. “Either they use Title IX to force schools to allow men on women’s sports teams, or if they’re not, then schools should stop the madness right now.”