The Biden administration expanded the definition of sex to include transgender with its Friday release of updated Title IX rules.
The new rules, only pertaining to sexual harassment and discrimination portions of Title IX, expand protections for LGBTQ+ and pregnant students while overhauling Trump-era guidance around how schools should handle sexual assault cases, CNN reported.
The new rules take effect Aug. 1.
Title IX is the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding.
The administration avoided the issue of whether transgender students should be able to play on school sports teams corresponding to their gender identity, The New York Times reported.
An open rulemaking process is set to address that issue. The sports rules are not likely to be finalized until after the 2024 election, the Washington Examiner reported.
The updated rules follow the Supreme Court's 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision in which Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch included transgenderism and sexual orientation under "sex" in federal discrimination law.
President Joe Biden then issued a day-one executive order requiring the entire federal government to apply the Bostock decision to everything it does.
"For over half a century, Title IX has opened doors, expanded access, and promised fairness. Before Title IX was passed in 1972, women and girls didn't have equal access to education in this country," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said on a call with reporters Thursday evening, the Examiner reported. "That was unacceptable then, and it's unfathomable now.
"Title IX promises that no person experiences sex discrimination, including sex-based harassment, or sexual violence in federally funded education."
Critics argue that Title IX will be rendered meaningless if men are allowed to participate in women's sports.
"The Department of Education has placed Title IX, and the decades of advancement and protections for women and girls that it has yielded, squarely on the chopping block," Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C, chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, told the Examiner.
"This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats' contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender.
"The rule also undermines existing due process rights, placing students and institutions in legal jeopardy and again undermining the protections Title IX is intended to provide. Evidently, the acceptance of biological reality, and the faithful implementation of the law, are just pills too big for the Department to swallow — and it shows."