The Terrible Turn of Title IX
Court Battles, Politicization, and Unfortunate Outcomes
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was a hard-earned regulation aimed to address a gap in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned various forms of discrimination by employers but failed to address discrimination in the education system. The text of Title IX states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
In this deep dive into how Title IX is being abused for political purposes, we work through a bit of Title IX’s history and some recent developments concerning transgender athletes. We examine the rich history of Title IX and the positive impact that it has provided for America’s women. We go into one of the court battles that is likely to find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket. We explore some of the data that has helped open-minded scientists to understand the drivers behind the surging number of transgender individuals. We also discuss the misguided and cowardly new regulations that the Biden-Harris administration is working to impose as they attempt to turn Title IX on its head.
The Legacy of Title IX
Over the decades, Title IX has made its most public impact in collegiate athletics. According to the Department of Education, “Title IX regulations require schools to provide equal opportunity based on sex.” These regulations have different options for demonstrating compliance, but the gist of it is that the percentage of men and women participants in athletics should be proportionate to the percentages of men and women enrolled in the school — and that proportion should be reflected in the scholarship money distributed to student athletes. The result has been increased participation in collegiate women’s athletics. This has come at the cost of thousands of men’s programs being discontinued, although the number of collegiate athletic teams has increased over the decades since Title IX was instituted.
Title IX has helped over three million young women get a college education in the past 50+ years. In 1972, girls made up 7% of high school varsity athletes, according to The Women’s Sports Foundation — today, that number is up to ~43%. Ernst & Young recently published research that suggests playing sports in high school or college can translate to women’s success in business: 94% of women executives played sports as a girl, benefiting from the hard work, focus, and discipline that is needed to succeed. So, Title IX was successful in terms of creating scholarship and education opportunities for female athletes as well as increasing their chances for professional advancement. At least, that was true from 1972 to 2024. But the times they are a-changin’.
The Psychology of Gender Dysphoria
As the numbers of individuals experiencing gender dysphoria continue to rise, two questions consistently surface: (1) How much of this trend can be attributed to genuine mental disorders? And (2) How much of this trend is associated with social contagions? While there may be other contributing factors, trends suggest that these are the prevailing contributors.
Dr. Samuel Paul Veissière discusses the “historical and cross-cultural” element of the transgender phenomenon. He explains that, across cultures and history, there has been an acceptance of individuals born male but who dress and live as female. He specifically identifies “the hijra in India, katoey in Thailand, bakla in Philippines, and travesti in Brazil.” The acceptance in those cultures “long predates the current transgender movement in the West.” The case that transgender identities can be accepted into culture is easily made, as is the case that this is not a new or unusual phenomenon.
The result of a study published in 2018 stated that, “Common diagnoses for children and adolescents were attention deficit disorder (transfeminine 15%; trans masculine 16%) and depressive disorders (transfeminine 49%; transmasculine 16%), respectively. For all diagnostic categories, prevalence was severalfold higher among [transgender and/or gender nonconforming] youth than in matched reference groups.” The study also showed concerning prevalence of self-inflicted injury and suicidal thoughts in the 1300+ transgender/non-conforming children and adolescents. The study also states that, “Among transfeminine children [age 3 to 9], 5% had an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis; however, no cases were observed in transmasculine children.” The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder was higher for transfeminine subjects in the adolescent (age 10-17 years) group compared to reference females. The prevalence of schizophrenia spectrum disorder was “particularly elevated” among transmasculine adolescents. In summary, the results of the study reveal that mental health conditions are common and often severe among transgender/non-conforming youth.
Dr. Veissière discussed findings from a 2018 study of social contagion that reveal other significant factors. First, the study references a survey by Dr. Lisa Littman of over “250 families whose children developed symptoms of gender dysphoria during or right after puberty.” Over 80% of the youth in the survey were female at birth. 80% of the youth in the study failed to meet diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria. Many of the youth in the study “had been directly exposed to one or more peers who had recently ‘come out’ as trans.” 63.5% of the parents of the youth in the study reported a “marked increase in internet and social media consumption” just before their child announced that they were trans. Following their coming out, there was an increase in “distress, conflict with parents, and voiced antagonism toward heterosexual people and non-transgender people.” Parents reported the use of language that was obviously from sources external to the household and that sounded scripted. Based on these factors, the study’s author developed the term “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD) for what “appears to be a novel condition that emerges from cohort and contagion effects and novel social pressures.” Thus, ROGD “exhibits an [etiology] and epidemiology that is distinct from the ‘classical’ cases of gender dysphoria”. The findings from the study elucidate rising rates in both natal females expressing desire to transition and in adolescents who desire to transition having exhibited no early signs of gender dysphoria. The study correlates these observations and social media exposure (although the author acknowledges that correlation does not imply causation).
Despite a long history across numerous cultures of transgender identity being accepted, it remains of high interest among modern psychologists as Western society seeks to understand the astonishing frequency at which new, mostly young individuals are declaring themselves transgender or some “non-conforming” gender identity. Evidence suggests that there are at least two paths to a transgender identity about which parents of children and adolescents should be cognizant: one is fraught with mental disorders and the other is a plague of social influences. This is not an implication that other factors should be denied, this is just scientific observation that is rooted in what we kind of know to be true: the youth of the world are facing a mental health crisis, and, at the same time, their young, malleable brains are being broken by corruptive social influences.
Side Note on the ROGD Study
As a side note, Dr. Littman’s study provoked attacks from across society. Her employers at Brown University deleted promotional references to her work from their website. They later replace those references with an update “explaining that the works might harm members of the transgender community”, according to former Dean of Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey Flier. Dr. Flier expressed his concerns about suppression of a meaningful study. Sound familiar? This is exactly the kind of thing Meet Me in the Middle has been warning about since we began writing. Brown University published a message, including the statement that “the School of Public Health has heard from Brown community members expressing concerns that the conclusions of the study could be used to discredit efforts to support transgender youth and invalidate the perspectives of the transgender community.” Actually, it seems more like the conclusions of the study could be used to discredit efforts to support children and adolescents who have been manipulated by a social contagion to mistakenly believe they are transgender. Due to the cowardice of Brown and the publisher, which also demanded revision to Dr. Littman’s study, this important work has been less able to reach the eyes and ears of parents and other researchers. This is a cautionary tale of how ideology corrupts the truth and has little to no regard for those that it actually harms, such as those who later desired to reverse their transition.
Also, Dr. Veissière was the unfortunate recipient of numerous attacks for his publication in Psychology Today. That was not all he received — he also heard from parents desperate to help their children, clinicians who just want to help their patients, and detransitioners who want to help others avoid the pitfalls to which they fell victim. He concludes his series of articles with a call for “Dialogue, not debate.”
The Trend of Reversal
A 2023 British Medical Journal (BMJ) investigation discussed the observation that, “As the number of young people receiving medical transition treatments rises, so have the voices of those who call themselves ‘detransitioners’ or ‘retransitioners,’ some of whom claim that early treatment caused preventable harm.” This BMJ article quotes Dr. Sarah Palmer, a pediatrician in Indiana, “I’ve seen a quick evolution, from kids with a very rare case of gender dysphoria who were treated with a long course of counseling and exploration before hormones were started,” to treatment progressing “very quickly — even at the first visit to gender clinic — and there’s no psychologist involved anymore.” This is anecdotal but revealing — gender affirmation is astonishingly growing more widespread without a thoughtful diagnostic process.
In a study by Elie Vandenbussche, a survey of 237 detransitioners had pscychological needs beyond gender-affirming care and were shortchanged on essential information about hormonal treatment. The average age of participants in the study was 25 years. Of the 237 participants, 92% were genetically female, 65% transitioned both socially and medically, and 46% of the participants who medically transitioned also underwent gender-affirming surgery. 70% of the detransitions were due to an understanding that their gender dysphoria was rooted in other issues, including depressive disorder (70%), anxiety (63%), post-traumatic stress (33%), attention deficit disorder (24%), autism spectrum disorder (20%), eating disorder (19%), and personality disorder (17%).
The New York Times says there is an “Anti-Trans Push in America.” This is yet another example of the Times publishing some very disingenuous and, frankly, dangerous rhetoric. They attack a young woman named Chloe Cole, a “former trans kid” who has been a vocal advocate for legislation to protect children like her — that is, children who are drawn in by the online social contagions that are so convincing for someone so young. Cole underwent a transgender surgery when she was 13 years old, with the support of her parents whom a doctor asked, “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?” Cole underwent a double mastectomy and had her nipples removed and then grafted back in a more masculine position, a procedure that not only makes it impossible for her to nurse a child, but also resulted in severed nerves and permanent pigmentation issues. She detransitioned four years later but faces a lifetime of nerve damage from the surgery and joint pain from weakened bone density associated with puberty blockers.
The NY Times also highlight the journey of the first American to change “her” legal sex to nonbinary, Elisa Ray Shupe. Shupe transitioned from male to female, only to later wish to detransition. She became an anti-trans activist, only to… later flip back to her trans identity with a desire to remain a woman and with a condemnation of the anti-trans movement. Not exactly a portrait of stability. The NY Times also downplays the magnitude of the detransition phenomenon. What The NY Times fails to depict is that the legislation they characterize as “anti-trans” is actually pro-health. The idea behind the legislation is to protect young people (the people that society has deemed are too young to make informed decisions about things like using tobacco and getting tattoos) from decisions that are potentially far more detrimental to their well-being and their health. And it is the deceitful rhetoric of supposedly reputable publications like The New York Times that promote skepticism about such legislation.
Comically, The New York Times is also under fire from trans activists for publishing an opinion piece that portrayed the detransitioning of teens in a misleading manner. The complaint is that it leads the reader to the conclusion that perhaps a higher percentage of transgender teens are detransitioning or having regret over transitioning than actually are. The truth is that it is very difficult to understand the degree of regret from the data that is available. Some estimates of the rate of detransition are as high as 30%, although that number seems a bit dubious. However, a survey of 27,725 transgender and gender diverse individuals provides some helpful data: Of the survey respondents, 17,151 pursued gender affirmation and 2,242 (13.1%) of that subset of respondents reported a history of detransition.
Regardless of the data that you trust, thousands of individuals, the majority of whom suffer from other mental conditions, have entered into life-altering therapies under the guidance of a healthcare system that does not seem concerned with their best interests. These individuals deserved a more measured and less aggressive approach to their treatment. But any such suggestion (especially among the medical or research profession) draws the ire of the trans activists — and a single email or social media post can “annihilate your career, social, family, and financial life in a day.”
Transforming Women’s Sports
In 2017, a young man named William Thomas began swimming for the University of Pennsylvania men’s swim team. That young man was a competitive swimmer in the men’s division, in which he recorded the sixth-fastest national 1,000-yard freestyle men’s time during his freshman year. That young man began hormone replacement therapy in 2019, came out as a transgender woman that year, and took the name Lia Thomas. She swam on the women’s team in the 2021-2022 season, at which point she had met the NCAA hormone therapy requirements to do so. In March 2022, Thomas won the women’s 500-yard freestyle NCAA Division I national championship, defeating three Olympic medalists. As a man in the men’s division, Thomas ranked 65th in the 500-yard freestyle, but won the championship in the women’s division.
Thomas is the most prominent transgender athlete in college sports, thanks to that national championship — which was likely unattainable in the men’s division. Thomas also got attention the day after winning the championship for another swimming event. Thomas tied biological female swimmer Riley Gaines for fifth place in the women’s 200-meter event. The NCAA official at the event explained to Gaines that they only had one 5th-place trophy and that it would be given to Thomas. Her trophy was to be mailed at a later date.
Tylor Mathieu, another female swimmer who competed in the 2022 championships, finished ninth in a 500-yard freestyle preliminary heat that also included Thomas. That left Mathieu one spot away from qualifying for the final. That exclusion kept Mathieu from receiving first-team All-American honors in the championship. Thus, a biological woman was denied an opportunity by a biological male.
Gaines joined over a dozen college athletes in filing a lawsuit against the NCAA in March 2024. The plaintiffs claim the NCAA’s decision to allow Thomas to participate in the 2022 national championships violated their Title IX rights. The lawsuit reportedly discusses the surprise that the genetically female swimmers experienced when they found out they were expected to share a locker room with Thomas at the championships. Gaines has been vocal on the locker room experience. Gaines explains that the locker room is not “a place of modesty’ and that these young women were “forced to watch this 6-foot-4 male with male parts undress in our locker room.”
A biological male winning a women’s collegiate national championship. A woman denied an opportunity to swim in the finals of the national championship. A woman denied first-team All-American honors. A male penis on display in the women’s locker room. Do you think that this is what the champions of women’s rights had in mind when they crafted Title IX?
A Contentious Court Case
A court case known as B.P.J. v. The State of West Virginia recently escalated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The plaintiff in this case is a minor transgender girl (that is, a person with male genitalia who identifies as a female) who challenged a West Virginia law called the “Save Women’s Sports Act.” This law requires that all sports teams must be “expressly designated” as male, female, or co-ed, and provides that “Athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex.” The law also defines “male” as “an individual whose biological sex determined at birth is male.”
The plaintiff claims that barring her from competing against young women is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution as well as a violation of Title IX. In the majority opinion, Circuit Judge Toby Heytens noted that “the Act’s sole purpose — and its sole effect — is to prevent transgender girls from playing on girls teams. Judge Heytens also states, “The question before us is whether the Act may lawfully be applied to prevent a 13-year-old transgender girl who takes puberty blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since the third grade from participating in her school’s cross country and track teams. We hold it cannot.”
The position of the defendants about whether a person is male or female must be determined “based solely on the individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Judge Heytens writes, “The defendants acknowledge that creating separate teams for boys and girls is a sex-based distinction, which triggers immediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause”, but the plaintiff did not challenge the sex separation in sports. The defendants point out that the plaintiff “objects to where the state legislature drew the line” that defines whom can play on which team, “not the fact the line exists.” Judge Heytens states that “the Constitution limits how and where [such lines] may fall,” and thus triggers intermediate scrutiny review.
The defendants claim that since the plaintiff (a biological male) has the (equal) opportunity to participate on male teams, there is no violation of the Equal Protection clause. Judge Heytens points out that the defendant’s insistence that the Save Women’s Sports Act does not discriminate based on gender identity because it treats all biological males the same creates its own conflict: transgender girls are treated differently from cisgender girls, which is gender identity discrimination. Judge Heytens also explains that permitting a biological female to play on a boys’ team while a biological male is prohibited from playing on a girls’ team is an “additional level of sex discrimination.”
Another question that the court must address: Is the exclusion of the plaintiff “substantially related to an important government interest”? The defendants justified the exclusion of transgender girls from girls’s sports teams because of participant safety and competitive fairness. Because the plaintiff’s challenge is concerned with non-contact sports, participant safety is not an issue in this case. So, the defendants and plaintiffs acknowledge the as-applied equal protection challenge is centered on whether excluding the plaintiff from non-contact sports is substantially related to competitive fairness. An “as-applied” challenge means that the ruling applies only to the circumstances of this case, and otherwise leave the policy intact and enforceable in other circumstances.
Judge Heytens compares the case of a transgender girl (a biological male) entering into a track competition with cisgender girls to the case of a cisgender girl, projected to finish 15th place at the season-end countywide track meet, finishing 16th place because another cisgender girl moved to the county a week before the county meet. The judge asks the question, “Would a State be able to justify otherwise unconstitutional discrimination based on an asserted interest in protecting the first girl’s anticipated 15th place finish?” The judge explains that the defendants must make the the case that losing to a transgender girl diminishes athletic opportunities for women. He asks, “Do people whose sex is assigned as male at birth enjoy a meaningful competitive athletic advantage over cisgender girls?”
The plaintiff explains that, in her circumstance, she began taking puberty blockers before hitting puberty, thus she did not experience the primary benefits enjoyed by males who enter into puberty: larger amounts of circulating testosterone, which increase the ability to build muscle mass that leads to greater strength/speed. Without the benefit of the larger amounts of circulating testosterone, and in combination with her gender affirming hormone therapy that will cause her to experience physical (bone, muscle, and fat distribution) changes typical of cisgender girls, she enjoys no competitive advantage based on her biology. The judge concluded that “there is a genuine dispute of material fact about this question” of the competitive athletic advantage of people whose sex is assigned male at birth over cisgender girls.
As for the Title IX challenge, the court concluded that applying the “Save Women’s Sports Act” to the plaintiff violates Title IX because it states that “No person… shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The court determined that the plaintiff has “on the basis of sex,” been “excluded from participation in,” been “denied the benefits of,” or been “subjected to discrimination” “in connection with middle school sports.” Judge Heytens also concludes that the plaintiff “is harmed” by the Save Women’s Sports Act in terms of what she is not allowed to do as well as what it would require of her if she wanted to compete with boys (including countermanding her “social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers, and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches, and even opponents as a boy). Competing with boys would also put the plaintiff at risk of physical danger, the same dangers from which the defendants are attempting to shield cisgender girls (although it looks like Judge Heytens is forgetting that these are non-contact sports).
Questions Raised
Is circulating testosterone the only contributor to a biological male having a physical advantage over a female peer in an athletic contest?
Are there any realistic scenarios in which this majority opinion might violate the Title IX regulations for a cisgender girl?
If the law states that “gender identity is separate and distinct from biological sex,” is that a legitimate basis for saying that transgender athletes are treated differently than cisgender athletes? Or is the problem with which the plaintiff is struggling simply that the law does not permit her to be treated the way she wants to be treated?
If a biological male claims a limited number of spots in a tournament or meet (something that occurred with this plaintiff), the outcome may be that a biological female has been denied an opportunity by the inclusion of that biological male. Is this a violation of Title IX, either in its text or in its spirit? Does this logic not give more advantage to biological males and put biological females at a greater disadvantage?
Dissent
Judge G. Steven Agee wrote a dissenting opinion on B.P.J. v. The State of West Virginia. With respect to the equal protection claim, Judge Agee notes the following flaws in the majority’s analysis:
Without explanation, the majority “erroneously concludes that” the plaintiff (a biological boy, Judge Agee notes) “is similarly situated to biological girls. To prove an equal protection violation, the plaintiff must identify persons materially identical to him or her who has received different treatment.” The plaintiff “cannot make such a showing” since “the person who is ‘in all relevant respects alike’ to a transgender girl is a biological boy.” Judge Agee rationalizes that “the majority necessarily must have determined that transgender girls are similarly situated to biological girls regardless of the competitive advantage they may have,” thus, “gender identity is the only relevant factor when determining the individual with whom [the plaintiff] is similarly situated.”
The majority “incorrectly determines that the [Save Women’s Sports] Act discriminates against transgender athletes on its face,” but Agee claims rather that “it simply places athletes on sports teams based on their biological sex.” He also notes that, “although the Act explicitly treats biological boys and biological girls differently, it does not expressly treat transgender individuals differently.”
The majority “inaccurately decides that the [Save Women’s Sports] Act may not be substantially related to West Virginia’s important government interest in ensuring equal opportunities for females as applied to” the plaintiff. West Virginia has an “exceedingly persuasive government interest in promoting fair competition and safety and ensuring opportunities for girls.”
Judge Agee wrote, per Peltier v. Charter Day School, Inc., “To prevail on a Title IX claim,” a plaintiff must show that:
She was “excluded from participation in an education program or activity, denied the benefits of this education, or otherwise subjected to discrimination of [her] sex;”
“The challenged action caused [her] harm;” and
“The defendants are recipients of federal funding.”
Judge Agee explains that the plaintiff’s Title IX claim fails on that first requirement because “‘discrimination’ means treating an individual worse than others who are similarly situated.” He goes on to state that the plaintiff “cannot meet this element of the Title IX claim: Biological sex is material to sports.”
The implication for Title IX, per Judge Agee: “In short, it means that states cannot exclude transgender girls from biological girls’ sports teams even when the transgender girls have gone through puberty and it is even clearer that they have a significant physiological advantage over biological girls. And allowing transgender girls — regardless of any advantage — as participants in biological girls’ sports turns Title IX on its head and reverses the monumental work Title IX has done to promote girls’ sports from its inception.”
The 2024 Version of Title IX
The Biden-Harris administration’s catastrophic capsizing of the law that has done so much to enhance the lives of so many women for over 50 years deserves a deeper examination. 1,577 pages — that is the length of the Biden-Harris overhaul of Title IX. We love to do our homework, but that is a bit hefty even for Meet Me in the Middle. For our look at how Biden-Harris mangled Title IX, we will lean on the writings of Erik Evans, lawyer and contributor to the sports blog rollbamaroll.com. As he writes, the Biden-Harris administration “upend Title IX as we have known it for half a century, make a mockery of due process of the accused, and may even represent a threat to the safety of students on campuses across the country.” He adds, “That means all campuses too, not just college campuses. Title IX applies to all educational institutions that received federal funding, even private schools, and even K-12 primary education.”
The 1972 law states that, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…” Mr. Evans points out that the entire Title IX text is written in those terms, not considering gender except as a synonym for biological sex (terms that generally did not carry any meaningful distinction until psychologists created one in the 1950s — even then, that distinction between the physical and pscychological characteristics was generally reserved for the psychology profession). To conflate biological sex with the modern definition of gender is to depart from “the biological reality understood in 1972,” as Mr. Evans puts it. He also points out that “The very conscript of a gender identity has not been fully operationalized in any uniform, scientific manner such to have established internal validity and reliability,” and, “the term ‘gender identity’ has been said to be everything from unfalsifiable; to malleable and unmoored from biology; to inherent in the sexual dimorphism of our species — even to being an epistemological claim, on par with someone’s profession of their faith.” So, because Title IX was written to protect against discrimination on the basis of sex, gender (which has varying definitions and meanings in modern contexts) simply is not covered by the 1972 version of Title IX.
When the Biden-Harris version of Title IX is enacted, per Mr. Evans, “A boy who claims his gender identity is a girl may occupy the spaces of and claim opportunities that were only ever contemplated for human females: locker rooms, bathrooms, mentorship programs, affinity groups etc. Conversely, a woman who says she’s a man may apply for young men leadership scholarships, for instance.”
The new Title IX rules also significantly alters how schools handle sexual assault accusations, effectively reversing the due process reforms installed by the Trump administration. President Obama’s administration mandated that campus sexual assault tribunals resolve such accusations, with no real legal process guiding sexual assault hearings. The Trump era regulations ushered in due process rights for accused students, much more in line with U.S. law. Under the Biden-Harris regulations, a student can be found guilty of sexual assault if a single administrator determines there was a 51% chance that the accused committed the assault (the “preponderance of evidence” standard), and such a conclusion can be reached without the accused ever knowing the full evidence against him and can be reached without the accused having an opportunity to defend himself in a hearing. While the claims of sexual assault victims should absolutely be treated with the utmost seriousness, so too should the right of the accused to defend themselves and evidentiary protections be taken seriously.
Where Does This Leave Us?
In short, nobody is happy. As Mr. Evans stated, the new interpretation of Title IX is “radioactive to almost every cohort, in some form or fashion, for some reason.”
The ultra conservative right obviously is not happy. There are “moral” objections aplenty. Any avenue for a transgender athlete to deny opportunity to a cisgender athlete flies in the face of traditional conservative Christian values. And, as Bishop Robert Barron points out, the Biden-Harris changes to Title IX raises concerns about religious liberty in the United States and the potential for the Catholic message to be censored.
But… This is a win for the progressive left, is it not? No, it is not. For starters, it is a hit against the feminist. It opens the door for the opportunities intended for women to be claimed by biological males. Feminism and women’s rights be damned. Further, the cowards who authored the 2024 Title IX overhaul completely failed to directly address the most important issue at hand: Is a biological male identifying as a woman entitled to participate on or accept a scholarship to participate on a woman’s swimming and diving or track and field team? That failure leaves the gender-critical feminists unhappy, it leaves the trans rights activists unhappy, and it leaves biological female athletes unhappy with how they are left exposed to discrimination.
There are about 40 million girls in the United States of which about 10.2 million are in high school, per 2021 data. In 2021, about 3.2 million (or ~31%) high school girls participated in sports (up from less than 300,000 at the time Title IX was enacted). According to 2023 data from USAFacts.org, 47.7% of the U.S. population self-identifies as male, 49.9% as female, 1.0% as transgender, and 1.4% as none of these. Data and surveys suggest that the current high school population has a higher percentage of transgender individuals, with percentages doubling that of the general population (about 2%). If about 2% of those 10.2 million high school girls are transgender, and if transgender girls participate in sports at a similar rate (~31%) as their cisgender counterparts, then around 64,000 biological girls each year stand to lose their opportunity to participate in athletics to biological males. As progressive ideologies infect young minds and as other factors continue to go unchecked, there is no reason to believe that those numbers will not continue to rise. More and more opportunities for women will be claimed by biological males.
The Biden-Harris administration let America down. They let women down. They let the transgender community down. And this was all in an effort, it would seem, to reclaim some portion of the left-leaning voting contingent that they continue to alienate at every turn. It is likely that this stunt will not win them any additional votes — and it might actually cost some. Typically, new regulations address problems or fill holes in existing regulations. These new regulations are ripe for litigation, remove protections for all students, and create more confusion than ever before.
Empathy, Support, and Skepticism
Even the most empathetic cisgender person probably has a difficult time connecting with or relating to the physical and mental trauma through which a transgender person must persevere, to imagine the courage it takes to push back against an entire society backed by generations of bias against them, and to comprehend the fear that they must battle through to achieve the existence that they feel they deserve. And, if you consider the suicide rates suffered by the transgender community, you will understand that it is their very existence that is at stake, so of course they will (and should) fight like hell to simply exist. They need support and deserve support. In Meet Me in the Middle, they have an ally… but also a skeptic.
There is simply too much evidence supporting the argument that the impressionable, malleable, ever-changing youthful minds of America are not equipped with the information, education, judgment, or maturity to determine whether they should commit to gender transition. It is absolutely appropriate for every parent to question any decision their child makes and to be skeptical about whether it is best for that child. If a teenager has an opportunity to take a summer internship with their aunt at a law firm or a summer job with their friends at a water theme park, the parent probably has a pretty good sense that the internship will benefit their child more. Those parents would probably support a decision to take the more fun job despite their skepticism about it being what is best for their teenager. But that decision will not have the same life- and health-altering impact on their child. In the case of puberty blockers or more extreme transition tactics, there is a permanence the likes of which a teenager simply lacks the experience and perspective to make an informed decision. Parents have a duty to protect their children from wrong decisions, especially of this magnitude.
As Chloe Cole states, “Adults need to take a stand. Complacency is what led to this happening to me in the first place.” In fairness to the adults in her life, complacency was not the only factor; scare tactics, deceit, profit, and social media all played significant roles. Her transition began about seven years ago and her detransition began about two years ago — she is only 19 years old at the time of this publication. We have learned a lot since Ms. Cole began her transition and parents should be armed with the information that they need to stand up to the deceitful claims of gender clinicians. In light of the experiences of youth like Ms. Cole and with an understanding of the influences that drive the desires of many young people to explore transitioning, it only makes sense for parents to approach a child expressing desire to transition with compassion and with a healthy amount of skepticism. Parents should be prepared to push back on health care providers that use terror-based arguments and must be bold enough to make decisions on what they determine to be in the best interest of their children.
Bringing It On Home
The states are split over the eligibility of transgender participants in athletic competition. The microscope is currently focused on the fairness of competition and safety in women’s sports. With the potential for litigation of cases originating in multiple different states, it is likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will deem it appropriate to levy an opinion. There is rationale behind the suggestion that the Court might be consistent with the 2021 Bostock v. Clayton County majority opinion that determines that gender-based discrimination falls under the sex-based anti-discrimination statutes, which would be a win for the transgender athletes. Given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, one must speculate that a majority ruling would be more aligned with Judge Agee’s dissenting opinion than with Judge Heytens.
In his dissenting opinion, Judge Agee referenced Deborah Blake, author of The Struggle for Sex Equality in Sport and the Theory Behind Title IX, who wrote the following in 2000 about what Title IX accomplished:
“Title IX has paved the way for significant increases in athletic participation for girls and women at all levels of education. Since the enactment of Title IX, female participation in competitive sports has soared to unprecedented heights. Fewer than 300,000 female students participated in interscholastic athletics in 1971. By 1998–99, that number exceeded 2.6 million, with significant increases in each intervening year. To put these numbers in perspective, since Title IX was enacted, the number of girls playing high school sports has gone from one in twenty-seven, to one in three.”
Those accomplishments have continued in the 24 years since Blake’s publication. But now the Biden-Harris administration has placed the continuation of the Title IX tradition in great peril.
It does not seem that the authors of the original 1972 Title IX text planned for a dispute over whether individuals born with male genitalia and genetics should be allowed to take athletic opportunities away from female athletes. There seems to be little to no support the 2024 Title IX changes, but we will likely have to wait until the Supreme Court straightens things out. Until then, try to stay sane.
We will leave you with a glass-half-full perspective on all of this: at least the Biden-Harris team found a way to unite liberals, conservatives, gender-critical feminists, trans rights activists, and pretty much everyone with more than one brain cell.