The U.S. Department of Education is withdrawing its rule that would require schools to allow boys to play in girls' sports

They smuggled this in on a Friday afternoon in a "take out the trash" moment, hoping no one would notice. But we noticed! Progress, though the fight isn't over.

Back in April of this year, the Biden administration's Department of Education issued a re-write to Title IX.

In this re-write, women’s sex based rights in the education system were, essentially, changed or removed, and replaced with “gender identity.” In practice, gender identity replaces women’s sex based rights in the education system, as of August when the new rules went into place.

As a reminder, the original Title IX, which was written into law in 1972, was established to protect women’s sex based rights in the education system. It was the whole point. These are the 37 words, put into law over 50 years ago, that changed everything for women and girls.

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 educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

With the re-write (that the Department of Education smuggled in in April of this year without legislating these major changes), it means: if a male says he is female he must be allowed in the locker room, in sororities, and in other female only spaces, and his pronouns must be obeyed otherwise the person not adhering could be charged with harassment. (And then due process was removed in the case of such a charge, but I’m not focusing on the problematic removal here. Even the ACLU has challenged that aspect of the re-write.)

Sports was not directly addressed in the re-write. But many states (over 20) are already implementing the re-write and applying it to sports. Because while not stated explicitly in the re-write, it could be applied. If he says he’s female, he is treated as such. He gets to be on women’s sports teams. In California anyway, and 23 other states, that have taken the re-write and run with it.

The Department of Education said they’d get to the sports bit later.

But as of yesterday, Biden’s Department of Education has withdrawn the rule that would force schools to let trans identified males compete in women’s sports.

Due to various pending lawsuits they have decided not to legislate on the matter at this time.

Note that this is not a full victory. The other changes to Title IX that require schools to treat trans-identifying students as the “gender” of their choosing are still in place.

So locker rooms, sororities and other female spaces are not protected and private.

Also, 24 states, including California, have laws requiring males who identify as female to be allowed to play on girls' teams. The withdrawal of the federal rule has no effect on the state laws.

So the fight is not over. But the “progressives” who insist that men who say they are women ARE women seem to be in retreat, to some extent. At the very least, they seem to have some sense that public sentiment is not on their side and perhaps they are a little tired of losing?

But don’t get complacent. State laws are still in play. The rules in private club sports which fuel the Olympic movement are still in play. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed males to win gold in the boxing ring this past summer and there has been no policy change there.

And of course, truth is still being denied because the “if you say you’re a woman you are” contingent is still rabidly pursuing this sentiment as a legal standard. So no privacy for women and girls, boys play against girls in “progressive” states like California, and children are still being told they may be born in wrong body and then given powerful sterilizing drugs and put on the path of irreversible mutilating surgeries before they turn 18.

The fight is not over.