Conservative groups launch portals to fight Biden transgender sports rules
Haisten Willis
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Conservative groups are gearing up to fight the Biden administration‘s new transgender sports rules.
The public comment portal is open for a Department of Education regulation that would limit how far states can go with gender-based athletics restrictions, and activists are hoping to flood it with comments from concerned voters.
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“If this regulation is implemented, it would force schools to allow men to compete against women and girls in fear of violating Title IX, and at the risk of losing their federal funding,” said Heritage Action executive director Jessica Anderson. “Heritage Action’s public comment portal gives female athletes and grassroots Americans an opportunity to fight back and voice their strong opposition to these radical efforts to destroy women’s sports.”
Heritage Action has created a portal to make it easier for people to send in their comments and concerns, as has another group, the Defense of Freedom Institute.
Comments will be accepted through May 15, and the final rule will be issued later this year.
The proposal was announced on April 6 and requires schools to allow students in elementary grades 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.
“LGBTQI+ kids are resilient. They are fierce. They fight back. They’re not going anywhere,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at the time. “And we have their back. This administration has their back.”
While the proposal drew some backlash from transgender activists who accused President Joe Biden of trying to straddle the fence and leave room for exclusion, conservatives argue that, in effect, it will cause most schools to allow men to compete against women.
“They are weaponizing Title IX across the board through a number of changes to the regulations,” said Bob Eitel, who helped craft regulations under the Betsy DeVos-led DOE. “This is a full-bore makeover of Title IX.”
Another rule change released last July generated 240,000 comments, a figure the groups are hoping to match or exceed this time around.
Eitel, now the president of DFI, stresses that under federal law, any federal agency in engaged in notice and comment rulemaking has a legal responsibility to review every submitted comment.
“We’re trying to make people aware that they do have a say on the final regulation,” he said. “I think your average American family who is watching this rulemaking by the Biden administration on athletics, gender identity, and Title IX finds the whole situation absolutely bizarre.”
The move sets the White House up against several GOP governors, most notably presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). DeSantis is known for his engagement on culture war issues, and the Florida Senate voted to approve a ban on transgender treatments for children just two days before the announcement.
Overall, 20 states have enacted legislation to ban biologically male students from competing in high school women’s sports, according to the Associated Press.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has pitched the proposed rule as protection for equal athletics opportunity, adding that he welcomes and encourages public comments.
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But opponents say the rules undermine women’s sports, creating a playing field that is anything but equal.
“The Biden administration is yet again attempting to use the federal rulemaking process to push radical gender ideology and threaten women’s safety and opportunity in sports,” Anderson said. “This time, Biden’s regulation seeks to undermine decades of Title IX protections by punishing schools trying to protect female athletes with burdensome, expensive, and unreasonable paperwork.”