Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday sued the Biden administration for expanding federal sex discrimination protections under Title IX to include LGBT students.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration expanded the definition of sex to include transgender with its 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.
"Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology," Paxton wrote in a statement.
"This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden's extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk."
Title IX was created to protect women by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program that receives federal money, including K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.
Paxton joined other state Republican leaders who disagree with the administration's update.
"The new rule contorts these protections for women by forcing schools to accommodate the wishes of men claiming to identify as women (or 'transgender') to enter female-only spaces and join female-only organizations," according to a Texas press release announcing the lawsuit.
"This would force schools to permit biological males to use female restrooms and lockers. If schools refused, federal funding would be withheld."
Texas added that the update to Title IX "violates existing federal law, ignores the Constitution, and denies women the protections that Title IX was intended to afford them."
"The Biden Administration has exceeded its authority and radically distorted the meaning intended by Congress when the law was made," the press release said. "Further, the changes would fundamentally transform the educational atmosphere of publicly funded educational institutions, forcing communities to capitulate to unscientific gender ideology and putting girls and women at risk in K-12 schools and on college campuses."
America First Legal joined Paxton in filing the lawsuit against the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, and two other department officials.
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