Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block new Title IX rules issued by the Biden administration that would expand protections for transgender students in K-12 schools and on college campuses.
Paxton, a Republican, claims the new regulations unlawfully expand the definition of “sex” in Title IX – the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs receiving government funding – to encompass gender identity. He argues this would force schools to let biological males who identify as female into female bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams, putting women and girls at risk.
“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth.
Joining the lawsuit as co-counsel is America First Legal, a conservative legal group headed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Miller called the regulations an “abomination” and “Biden’s war on women,” saying the rules “force women and girls to share locker rooms and restrooms with men.”
The new rules from the U.S. Department of Education formalize guidance issued last year that said barring transgender students from using bathrooms or taking part in activities and sports corresponding to their gender identity constitutes prohibited sex discrimination under Title IX. The regulations strengthen protections for transgender students by clearly defining a student’s gender identity as being covered under Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination. Schools would be required to use students’ preferred pronouns and could face loss of federal funding for violating the rules.
The Biden administration claims the changes restore transgender students’ access to bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams matching their self-proclaimed gender identity. However, Paxton argues the rules amount to a “radical distortion” of Title IX not intended by Congress, illegally forcing schools to let biological males who claim to be women into spaces meant to protect female privacy and safety. He warned girls could face “humiliation, degrading treatment, and loss of opportunity” as a result.
Legal challenges to the new rules were expected from Republican-led states seeking to prevent Title IX being used to implement transgender ideology, and Texas looks to be the first state of many.
Paxton previously sued the Biden administration over federal guidance documents on transgenderism, with the latest lawsuit taking aim at codifying those interpretations into formal regulations.
The new Title IX rule expands the definition of “sex” to include “gender identity,” which would require schools to accommodate transgender students’ access to restrooms, locker rooms and sports teams aligning with their gender identity rather than biological sex at birth, which Paxton and other critics say violates existing law by radically redefining the term “sex” in Title IX beyond its original intent of prohibiting discrimination against women and girls.
They contend the rule illegally forces schools to let biological males access female facilities and activities, infringing on privacy and safety; the lawsuit calls it an overreach of federal authority that “denies women the protections that Title IX was intended to afford them.”
The regulations also include revised policies for how schools investigate and adjudicate claims of sexual misconduct. Paxton says they improperly redefine harassment to include “constitutionally protected activity” like using biologically correct pronouns.
Meanwhile, in a letter to President Joe Biden, Texas Governor Greg Abbott publicly spoke out against the Title IX changes. Abbott stated Title IX was meant to uplift women’s academics and athletics and was premised on only “male and female” sexes, arguing the rules were a “ham-handed effort to impose a leftist belief.”
The governor further instructed state education officials to ignore the “illegal dictate,” vowing to protect laws barring transgender female athletes from competing against biological females. He stated that the rewrite “tramples laws” he signed safeguarding women’s sports integrity, finishing by declaring that “Texas will fight to protect” them.