Author: IWN Media Team

This op-ed was written by Angela Morabito, visiting fellow with Independent Women’s Forum. Originally appeared on Fox News.

The American left has invented its own lexicon, in which “mothers” are erased in favor of “birthing people,” “inclusivity” excludes conservatives, and “woman” means “anyone who identifies as female.” 

Until now, anyone who rejected this false language around sex has had the freedom not to use it. But President Joe Biden’s new Title IX rule is about to make woke-speak the official language of our nation’s public schools. 

The rule redefines “sex” to include “gender identity,” which means schools must treat students not according to whether they are a boy or a girl, but whether they identify as a boy or a girl. As a result, “misgendering” someone – or referring to him or her by the “wrong” pronoun – could create a hostile environment, which amounts to sex-based discrimination. Because it is sex-based discrimination, schools are obligated to stop it.  

If a school allows such a speech crime to go unchecked, it could find itself on the receiving end of a federal investigation, which may result in the Department of Education yanking its federal funding. 

Referring to a boy as “he” is now cause for alarm, if the “he” in question would rather be referred to as “she.” So, too, is calling a trans-identifying person by his or her given name. School employees and students must use the child’s preferred name and pronouns, even if the child’s parents don’t want to do so.  

The parents might not even have the opportunity to object. Nothing in the rule requires schools to notify parents if their child requests a new name and gender identity while at school.   

This creates a nightmare for teachers and students who don’t believe this nonsense. If a student or teacher at your child’s school chooses to go by a different name and pronouns, your child will be forced to be complicit in affirming that new identity when speaking to or about that person. The Biden administration is trampling on the right to free speech and freedom of religion to appease the radical left.

To pretend that the categories “male” and “female” have little to do with biology will confuse the country’s youngest students, who are only beginning to learn the meaning of words and how to identify similarities and differences in the world around them.  

No one is stopping any child or teacher from calling someone else by their preferred name or pronouns. But just as individuals deserve the freedom to do that, they deserve the freedom not to. 

In the leftist lexicon, male and female are not the only genders, but just two out of an infinite number of possibilities. This creates a nightmare for enforcement. Is it discrimination, in the eyes of the administration, for schools to tell an “agender” or “nonbinary” student to use either a male or female restroom? How should administrators respond if a teacher calls a “genderfluid” student by a male name on a day the student feels more female?  

These are the questions brought about when government leaders ignore biology to appease a new privileged class, whose self-image will soon be valued higher than truth in our nation’s schools.  

The new rule is deeply harmful, not only to students who will be forced to “affirm” a lie, but also to the students who reject their sex. The vast majority of students who experience gender dysphoria will grow out of it without medical intervention. Having their peers and teachers treat them according to their chosen identity not reality simply sets them up for long-term confusion and distress.  

This government-imposed manipulation of language results in the loss of sex-segregated spaces in colleges and K-12 schools. Under Biden’s new rule, allowing boys in girls’ locker rooms, sports teams, restrooms and dormitories is not a violation of Title IX.  

He has robbed the law of its original meaning and replaced it with a radical nightmare for women and girls. The Biden regime says that a man in the women’s locker room does not constitute a hostile environment, but repeated “misgendering” might.  

The Defense of Freedom Institute, joined by the States of Louisiana, Montana, Mississippi and Idaho, the Louisiana Department of Education, and 18 Louisiana school districts, has sued the Biden administration to halt this rule before it takes effect on August 1. Ending the rule would benefit students, parents, and teachers who deserve better than this egregious step backward for civil rights and free speech. 

This piece was written by Paula Scanlan, ambassador at Independent Women’s Forum and former swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a teammate of Lia (formerly Will) Thomas. Originally appeared in RealClearEducation.

For more than 50 years, Title IX has outlawed sex discrimination in education and required schools to provide equal athletic opportunities for male and female students.

But a recently released Title IX regulation contradicts this mandate by redefining “sex” to include “gender identity,” thus requiring schools to allow males who identify as women to enter women’s spaces and take opportunities from female students.

Knowing that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of male bodies on women’s athletic teams, the Biden administration disingenuously claims that the rule doesn’t apply to sports. And, yet, the Administration has repeatedly insisted — in court filings and in public pronouncements — that Title IX requires schools to allow trans-identified males to play women’s sports.

Well, the Biden administration can’t have it both ways. Either they are using Title IX to force schools to allow males on women’s sports teams or, if they are not, then schools should stop the madness right now.

Claims that the new rule doesn’t apply to sports are, moreover, belied by the fact that it explicitly applies to women’s locker rooms.

I know well the dangers of inviting males into women’s locker rooms. I was a member of the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team when the school allowed Lia (formerly Will) Thomas to compete and undress alongside us.

My teammates and I were forced to undress in the presence of Lia, a 6’4” tall biological man fully intact with male genitalia, 18 times per week. Some girls opted to change in bathroom stalls and others used the family bathroom to avoid this. Having Lia in our locker room was particularly traumatizing for me, as prior to attending the University of Pennsylvania, I was sexually assaulted. The swimming locker room had always been a safe space for me. That is, until my university invited a male body to undress alongside me. I began to have nightmares and mentally had to relive my own attack every week that I changed in that locker room.

When we tried to voice our concern to the University Athletic Department, we were told that Lia swimming and being in our locker room was non-negotiable, and we were offered psychological counseling to help us get over our discomfort.

The administration says it will address athletics in a separate regulation to be released at a later time (no doubt, after the election). But that rule will merely provide procedures for implementing the default position announced last week: that schools must prioritize the wishes of trans-identifying students over those of female students.

Hopefully, the courts will see this for what it is, an unlawful rewrite of Title IX, a statute passed to increase educational opportunities for women—not limit them.