Tag Archive for: title ix

Riley Gaines Demolishes Dems’ Trans Defense in the Senate’s ‘Protect Pride’ Hearing

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Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was chased, threatened, and held hostage in a room for three hours while a mob of leftist students raged outside, but it’s trans-identifying “children” who are “in danger,” Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told her. That was just one of the staggering statements made by Democrats in a Wednesday hearing full of phony victimhood. And judging by the Left’s desperation, they won’t be the last.

While Americans continue to put the hurt on pro-trans companies, Joe Biden’s party is right to worry that the script may have permanently flipped. In a nod to the defense the Left is now playing, the Senate Judiciary Committee hosted “Protecting Pride: Defending the Civil Rights of LGBTQ+ Americans” to sound the alarm on the shifting opinions of the country.

Some of the most dramatic moments centered around girls’ sports, where the Republicans’ witness, Gaines, expertly gutted the Left’s arguments. In an exchange with Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), she recounted the nightmare at San Francisco University earlier this year where students surrounded her and demanded a ransom “if I ever wanted to make it home to see my family again.” “I’m totally fine with people protesting,” she explained. “It’s their right to protest. But what I’m not fine with is when it does turn violent in the way that it did, because protesters afterwards, they rushed into the room, they turned off the lights, they rushed to the front. [We] were assaulted.”

Hawley acknowledged that the former NCAA All-American has been the target of “unbelievable amounts of abuse … intimidation, threats of violence.” He asked her to explain why. She said she believes it’s because she’s refused to take the erasure of women and girls lying down. “If we do speak up… they will call you everything under the sun — whether it’s transphobic, homophobic, racist, white supremacist, domestic terrorists. They will throw them all at you in hopes to deter you and hopes to silence you.”

For Gaines, who competed against male swimmer Lia Thomas, there was no other option. Apart from the injustice of competing — and losing — to a biological male, the things she and others were forced to endure in the locker room were demeaning and cruel.

“You were talking about just the incredible surprise, shall I say to put it gently, of finding a biological man, a 6-foot-4 biological man, in your locker room and having to accept that without being asked about it, without being told about it even,” Hawley said. “What was that like for you?”

Gaines explained that the girls “only became aware we would be undressing next to a man when we had to see a man undressing while we were simultaneously undressing.” An NCAA official told the women that Thomas was allowed because of a rule change that made the spaces “unisex.”

“And so I’m thinking to myself in these brief moments … you acknowledged that we do not share the same sex, first and foremost,” Gaines continued. “Secondly, unisex [means] any man could’ve walked into our locker room, any coach, any official, any man who wanted to would have had full reigns to and bare minimum we weren’t forewarned about it — and that’s the traumatizing part. Of course the experience in and of the locker room itself is traumatizing, but I think for me, it was so easy for them to dismiss our rights to privacy.”

Worse, she shared, Thomas’s teammates at the University of Pennsylvania “were forced every single week to go to mandatory LGBTQ education meetings to learn about how — just by being cisgender — they were oppressing Lia Thomas. They were told that they’re not allowed to take a stance because their school has already taken their stance for them. They were told, ‘You will never get a job,’ ‘You will never get into grad school,’ ‘You will lose your friends,’ ‘You will lose your scholarship and playing time if you speak out.’”

And yet, Durbin’s concern is not for America’s daughters, but for the trans-identifying children who might be listening. “When these young people, who are already struggling, hear … hateful rhetoric that denies their very existence, what message does it send?” he demanded to know.

Gaines took the senator head on. “… [M]y comeback to that is, what message does this send to women, to young girls, who are denied these opportunities? So easily, their rights to privacy and safety [are] thrown out the window to protect a small population, protect one group as long as they’re happy,” she said. “What about us? That is the overall general consensus of how we all felt in that locker room.”

Durbin didn’t answer her questions, instead firing back, “Since reference was made to my earlier statement, I would just like to add something for the record: There is no evidence that transgender athletes are an issue in certain levels of sports.”

Trans activist Kelley Robinson of the Human Rights Campaign tried — but failed — to give Durbin cover. When Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) asked the Democrats’ witness for an example of a woman playing in the NBA, Robinson replied with an incoherent answer about Serena Williams.

“There’s been this news article about men that think they can beat Serena Williams in tennis — that they think they can actually score a point on her,” Robinson said. “And it’s just not the case. She is stronger than them.”

Gaines immediately interjected, “Both Serena and Venus lost to the 203rd-ranked male tennis player.” As Breitbart pointed out, the swimmer was right. The famous sisters were both crushed by Karsten Braasch in 1998, who, at 31, was older than either of them.

More than a decade later, the world’s number one women’s player was open about the fact that women couldn’t measure up to men on the court. “So, if I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose, 6-0, 6-0, in 5 to 6 minutes, maybe 10 minutes,” Serena told David Letterman. When he disagreed, she shook her head. “No, it’s true. It’s a completely different sport. Men are a lot faster, and they serve harder and hit harder, it’s just a different game, and I only want to play girls, I don’t want to be embarrassed …”

And yet, four times Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked Robinson, “Do you believe there’s a difference between men and women?” Four times, the HRC chief refused to answer. “… [L]et me ask you this question then, why do women’s sports exist?” After all, Cruz said, “If you can’t find a difference between women and men, why not abolish women’s sports and just tell little girls to swim with little boys and see who wins?” Robinson replied that there were “many positive benefits to sports.”

Benefits, Gaines insists, that will vanish if the Democrats’ agenda succeeds. “Feminism is not a fluid term,” the swimmer insisted. And an overwhelming number of Americans agree. In an NPR, PBS NewsHour, and Marist poll released the same day as the hearing, 61% of the country — up 10% from May 2022 — agree “defining gender as the sex listed on a person’s original birth certificate is the only way to define male and female in society.”

“The original and the meaning of what it means to be a feminist is to uphold, respect, honor, embrace and celebrate women on our own physical ceilings, our own uniqueness.” No matter what the Left says, Gaines stressed. “That term has not changed.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Moms for America: ‘We Are Going to Put the Pressure on the Senate’ to Pass Women’s Sports Bill

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On June 7, a nonprofit by the name of Moms for America held a press conference on the Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C. to speak out about biological men competing in women’s sports across the country. H.R. 734, otherwise known as the Protection of Women’s Sports Act of 2023 has passed the House and is waiting for the Senate to schedule a vote. Professional and collegiate athletes gathered to share their stories along with different state representatives, all united under one objective: calling on the Senate to act and pass the bill.

Tennessee State Representative Diana Harshbarger (R) stated, “I know, as a health care professional, you cannot change somebody’s DNA.” She went on to note how we are in the middle of a spiritual battle. “As the Bible says, what is looked at as evil is now being looked at as good, and what is good is being looked at as evil. That is a spiritual message that I want to send to every American. … We cannot legislate morality.”

One by one, several female athletes also shared their experiences of competing with men identifying as women. Each experience was unique, yet all shared the same conclusion: sex is biology, not identity, and females simply cannot compare to males in terms of athleticism.

Macy Petty, a collegiate volleyball player, was the first to speak on behalf of the girls. Men increasingly stealing opportunities in women’s sports is a “direct threat to the integrity of the competition,” she emphasized. Early in her career, Petty had an opportunity to showcase her skills in front of several scouts. “On the other team was a very tall and athletic man,” she stated. “I did not sign up to be in a co-ed league. … The ruling authorities decided this boy’s feelings overrode our opportunity to play in a female only league. … With his biological advantages, he wooed the college scouts. I hate to think what young lady was passed over to make room for him on their [female] college team.”

After Petty shared her experience, other female athletes stepped forward with similar, heartbreaking stories about times that they were robbed of their sports opportunities as well. To conclude the press conference, Idaho State Representative Barbara Ehardt (R) spoke about how she has been an avid voice in this fight for sports equality throughout her lifetime. “I spent years fighting for opportunities for our girls and women [with Title IX]. Now we’re going backwards,” she said.

Ehardt emphasized how the culture is claiming to make sports a place of humanity, inclusion, and community by allowing men to compete against women. “Folks, I’m telling you, that’s not it at all,” she said. “When it comes to athletics, when it comes to keeping your job, it is about winning. If it wasn’t about winning, players wouldn’t get cut and coaches wouldn’t get fired. It’s about winning, make no mistake, and we cannot compete with the male counterparts.” Ehardt concluded by expressing how her passions have heightened since Title IX was first enacted in 1964. This is not an issue that’s relevant only to the present batch of competitors, she contended. This is an issue that has been debated and fought over for decades. “People, it’s a movement. … Step up, be courageous.”

The fight for integrity in women’s sports is raging, because it questions a fundamental truth. As Kassidy Comer, former college basketball player, told The Washington Stand, “You [cannot] ignore God’s plan for who we’re made to be. You know, we were crafted in the womb in His image, and He does not make mistakes. So, when you’re looking at it saying, ‘I know I was born this way, but I feel like I might be this way,’ that is just spiritual warfare, and that is my strong belief as a Christian.”

When asked how her faith helped her be bold in this fight, Comer responded, “I believe we are called to speak truth into this world. We are called to be salt and light. Salt and light can be invasive sometimes, [it] might hurt somebody’s feelings, but we’re called to speak truth … and that is one thing I’ve really tried to do with the platform I’ve been blessed with.”

Debbie Kraulidis, the vice president of Moms for America, stated that this fight is not an easy one, but it is certainly necessary. “We are going to put the pressure on the Senate to pass this bill,” she said. “It is up to us … to protect women’s sports.”

AUTHORS

Baylie McClafferty

 Sarah Holliday

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EDITOS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Alabama Bans Biological Men from Competing in Women’s College Sports

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On Tuesday, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R) signed legislation prohibiting biological males who identify as transgender from competing in women’s college sports. The bill’s ratification marks the latest in a swath of legislation nationwide aimed at protecting fair play in women’s sports.

The Alabama law is the second measure enacted in the state in the last two years designed to protect female sports. In 2021, the Yellowhammer State put into practice legislation stating that girls’ sports in grades K-12 are limited to biological females.

According to Fox News, Alabama is one of 20 states nationwide that have put in place guidelines prohibiting biological males from competing in women’s sports in recent years. The wave of legislation comes as an increasing number of biological males are being allowed to compete in women’s sporting events, resulting in at least 30 women’s titles being claimed by biological men over the last 20 years, with the vast majority of those male wins occurring in the last four years alone.

“Look, if you are a biological male, you are not going to be competing in women’s and girls’ sports in Alabama,” Ivey said in a statement. “It’s about fairness, plain and simple.”

Alabama State Rep. Susan DuBose (R), the bill’s sponsor, was equally frank about the need for the legislation. “Forcing women to compete against biological men would reverse decades of progress that women have made for equal opportunity in athletics,” she said last month. DuBose went on to add that “no amount of hormone therapy can undo all those advantages” of being born male.

Still, some media outlets are claiming that the argument that biological male athletes have physical advantages over female athletes has “little basis in science,” as declared by the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday. But a 2020 study on transgender-identifying biologically male athletes found that even after two years of taking hormones to suppress their testosterone, they still retained a 12% advantage over female athletes in running tests. In a separate Canadian study that found similar results, the authors stated, “Testosterone suppression does not remove the athletic advantage acquired under high testosterone conditions at puberty, while the male musculoskeletal advantage is retained.”

A growing chorus of prominent women athletes and sportscasters have added their voices in support of fair play in women’s sports. In response to biological male transgender-identifying swimmer Lia Thomas’s claim that it’s “transphobic” to limit women’s sports to biological women, Grand Slam tennis champion Martina Navratilova was blunt: “NEWSFLASH Lia — it’s not fair. We shouldn’t have to explain it to you over and over. Also — stop explaining feminism to feminists.”

After ESPN commentator Samantha Ponder recently admitted that she has had “so many [people message] me, stop me in the street to say thank you [and] tell me stories [about] girls who are afraid to speak up for fear of lost employment/being called hateful,” USA Today’s Nancy Armour claimed Ponder was promoting “bigotry.” But ESPN colleague Sage Steele came to Ponder’s defense, tweeting, “Pathetic attack on a WOMAN who is simply fighting for WOMEN in sports … Stay strong @samponder ..this is a lonely fight, but it’s worth it.”

It appears that the fight is becoming less lonely, as another ESPN commentator, who has since left the network, acknowledged that “as a woman … [it] was huge slap in the face” that ESPN celebrated Lia Thomas during Women’s History Month. Meanwhile, Riley Gaines, a former championship swimmer for the University of Kentucky, has become the face of the growing movement to protect women’s sports.

Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council and a former NCAA Division I athlete, expressed support for Alabama’s bill protecting women’s collegiate sports.

“I am so grateful for the new Alabama law recognizing that it is unfair and unsafe for men to play women’s sports at the collegiate level,” she told The Washington Stand. “Sports are meant to teach life lessons, but when we allow men to play women’s sports, the only life lesson we’re teaching is that women will always come in second. I look forward to the day when all 50 states follow Alabama’s lead.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

School District Tells Gym Teachers To Wear Gay Flags, Use Preferred Pronouns To Make Class More ‘Inclusive’

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A Colorado school district encouraged its physical education (P.E.) teachers to don LGBT pride gear and use preferred pronouns in an effort to display their support for the LGBTQ community, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation through a public records request.

On March 8, a group of Jeffco Public Schools high school teachers were trained on how to make the district’s P.E. programs “even more inclusive,” where all students feel welcome regardless of their “race, ethnicity or sexual orientation,” according to a presentation obtained by the DCNF through a public records request. Teachers were trained to engage in “public visibility” by sporting some sort of rainbow pride gear such as a pin or t-shirt, plan or participate in pride events and practice using preferred pronouns.

“We know from research and feedback from students around the country that visibility matters immensely in building inclusion,” the presentation read. “A pin, t-shirt, flags, stickers and use of pronouns are impactful ways of making a difference.”

Teachers can participate in “public visibility” by having “safe-space and ally messages” in waiting areas, hallways and in the locker room, the training stated. Teachers can also wear a “scarf, shirt, tie, lapel pin and shoes” to send a “strong message of support.”

“Guessing” someone’s preferred pronouns can be “offensive and harassing,” while using “correct” pronouns is a good way to show someone you respect them, the training stated. The presentation suggested that teachers include their pronouns on a white board, in their email signature, on their zoom profile and on their business cards.

Students should be allowed to use locker rooms and participate in P.E. classes on the basis of gender identity rather than biological sex, though each transgender student should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, the training stated. To create an “inclusive and safe” locker room, the training suggested teachers use an “anonymous tip box” or “offer alternative spaces.”

“Unless precluded by state interscholastic association policies, students should be permitted to participate in interscholastic athletics in a manner consistent with their gender identity,” the training read.

For sports teams, teachers and coaches were encouraged to document “inclusion” and potentially modify team policies to state that all students are welcome “regardless of race, religion, sexuality or gender identity,” the training stated.

LGBTQ students experience “barriers” that keep them from exercising such as a “lack of safe spaces” in locker rooms and bathrooms, and “gendered classes and teams,” the training showed.

The Education Department (ED) released proposed changes to Title IX in April that, if adopted, would bar public K-12 schools and colleges from adopting a “one-size-fits-all-policy” and prohibit students from joining sports teams on the basis of gender identity. School districts throughout the nation are adopting policies to separate sports teams on the basis of gender identity rather than biological sex; in April, the San Francisco State University athletics director claimed there is no “competitive” difference between men and women in sports.

“We will learn from each other to increase the sense of belonging for our students that identify as LGBTQ+, especially in the world of sports and PE,” the presentation stated.

Jeffco Public Schools did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

Contributor.

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘They’re Forced to Celebrate It’: Parents of Girls Losing to Boys Speak Out

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“How do you not understand that’s unfair?” It’s a question parents across the country are asking, as more and more of their daughters watch everything they train for vanish. For moms and dads at California’s CIF-North Coast Section Meet, the outrage reverberated across the stands. They watched as Adeline Johnson, an 18-year-old senior, was eliminated from the state track and field championships — all because a biological boy decided to compete as a girl. “There’s no way this should be allowed,” one parent fumed. And yet, if Joe Biden has his way, it will be the future of sports for every girl in America.

Until recently, the boy named Athena Ryan competed in men’s cross country, finishing a distant 63rd in the 2021 men’s 5,000 meters. But this past weekend, running as a girl, he placed second in the 1,600 — knocking real women down or off the podium. After the race, Ryan told reporters he wasn’t “expecting” to run as well as he did. “I dropped like 17 seconds on my season’s best in the past two weeks,” he bragged. “I was just coming here trying to break 5 — just glad I finished it out.”

People in the stands watched as Ryan blew past runners in the backfield toward the end of the race. “You either think that he is holding back,” a parent said, “or it’s his lactic threshold — which means he can access energy in the final part of the race. Girls can’t do that,” the spectator continued. “There is a physical way in which they race. Having a boy in there just throws off the mechanics of the race.”

To the families who’ve helped their daughters train and shuttled them back and forth to meets, the whole sport is becoming a sham. “I 100% percent empathize with the need to belong and the desire to compete,” another anonymous parent said. “[But] you have to understand how hard these girls work to do this.”

Johnson, who will watch Ryan take her place at the state finals later this spring, went viral for giving a subtle thumbs-down during the medal ceremony for her race. To some parents, that was a bold gesture since the girls have been advised to ignore the unfairness of it all and smile along.

“It’s heartbreaking to see what happens to these kids and how scared they are to even show the slightest bit of body language that might indicate they aren’t happy with it,” a family member told The Daily Caller. “They’re, like, forced to celebrate it.”

Worse, that protocol seems to extend to parents, who explain, “We have all been advised that we are not protected. As a family, anything we say falls under the student code of conduct [which demands conformity to the trans agenda]. If we don’t follow the guidelines, then it is considered bullying.” And since “they can’t protect our girls from being disqualified,” it makes sense “why no one wants to speak out.”

“Everybody is too terrified to challenge it. There is the fear of what will happen, what will be taken away, and if you won’t be allowed to race — or if you’ll be canceled.”

Even spectators were silenced, after security decided to remove a group of protestors holding a long banner that read, “Protect Female Sports.” The video, which got plenty of attention on social media, shows the group being confronted by another woman, who calls their sign “disgusting” and “offensive.” For others, however, the escort out of the stadium was a moment of clarity. “Many parents were completely unaware there was a boy competing in girls’ races,” the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) explained.

And not just one boy, as former University of Kentucky swimmer and Title IX advocate Riley Gaines pointed out. A “2nd trans-identifying male, Lorelei Barrett is headed to the @CIFState CA track championships next weekend,” she tweeted. “Along with male Athena Ryan, he’s also qualified in the ‘Girls 1600m’ race. Barrett had qualified for the girls state cross country championships last fall …”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is continuing its obsession on erasing women with a new rule that would wipe away state protections for girls’ sports. Now that public comments have been collected, it’s only a matter of time before Title IX is effectively wiped away.

This, critics say, despite a resurfaced study from the federal government’s own National Institutes of Health which found that biological boys are “faster, stronger, fitter” after taking female hormones.

“A major review quietly re-shared by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) last August suggests that early exposure to testosterone means trans women possess at least eight physical and mental attributes that could give them an advantage in sports — even if they make the change relatively early.

“Findings showed trans women had greater muscle mass and bone density, which aid strength, power and durability, plus bigger lungs and higher oxygen levels, which help with endurance, as well as increased connections in the brain responsible for spatial awareness, which could help with agility.”

In other words, Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon says, “The Biden administration is further confusing and pressuring schools to adopt these policies, while acknowledging that boys and girls are different and boys have an advantage over girls in competitive sports.”

Parents need to understand, she told The Washington Stand, this isn’t just happening at public schools. “This story is an example of what can happen in private schools when decision-making authority is outsourced to sports’ governing bodies or academic associations. Some of the most woke schools in the country are exclusive prep schools [like Sonoma Academy where these athletes were from].”

There’s a lesson here for religious schools, Kilgannon urged: “Make sure your governing documents are sufficient to withstand an attack from within. Mary Hasson’s work at Person and Identity Project is a great example of the kinds of safeguards, programs, and professional development religious schools need to protect your children and your institution against this ideology.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Team Biden Joins the School Library Wars, Launching Federal Investigation

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UPDATE:

“Whoever succeeds in telling the stories to the children gets to control the future.” That was Kirk Cameron’s answer to people wondering why he’s joined the debate over America’s libraries. As parents everywhere fight to keep graphic content out of their children’s hands, Texas officials are warning the battle is taking an ominous turn. It’s not just the forces of the Left that communities will have to contend with. It’s the federal government, whose new investigation into a local school district could upend every grassroots effort to protect kids.

For leaders in Texas’s Granbury School District, the bomb dropped shortly before Christmas. Officials in the Civil Rights Division of Biden’s Department of Education (DOE) said they’d received a formal complaint from the ACLU that the small community outside Fort Worth was somehow violating the government’s definition of “sex” by pulling books from school library shelves.

The ACLU’s beef dates back to November 2021 when Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) urged the state’s association of school boards to “ensure no child is exposed to pornography or other inappropriate content in a Texas public school.” His letter, which keyed off parents’ growing outrage about the material on school shelves, insisted on greater transparency about the content students can access. Abbott said his office had been contacted by a number of moms and dads who were “rightfully angry” about the “pornographic and obscene” content.

Granbury officials took the governor’s directive to heart, ordering a review of the district’s book titles. But what ultimately landed the district in hot water was a candid conversation Superintendent Jeremy Glenn had with the schools’ librarians — which was eventually leaked to the press. He talked about the conservative make-up of the community and insisted that they would act accordingly. “We do have a very conservative board,” Glenn said in a reference to the two new school board members. “They are elected, and recently more conservative. And so that’s what our community is. That’s what our job is.”

At the end of the day, Glenn insisted, “I don’t want a kid picking up a book, whether it’s about homosexuality or heterosexuality, and reading about how to hook up sexually in our libraries. … And I’m going to take it a step further with you,” the superintendent went on. “There are two genders. There’s male, and there’s female. And I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women. And there are women that think they’re men. And again, I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there’s no place for it in our libraries. … I’m cutting to the chase on a lot of this,” Glenn insisted. “It’s the transgender, LGBTQ, and the sex — sexuality — in books. That’s what the governor has said that he will prosecute people for, and that’s what we’re pulling out.”

Over the next two weeks, Granbury embarked on what the Texas Tribune called “one of the largest book removals in the country, pulling about 130 titles from library shelves for review.” Two months later, the volunteer review committee inexplicably voted to return all but three books that they’d permanently banned.

By then, the audio of Glenn’s meeting had made its way to the media, and liberal news outlets like the Texas Tribune, ProPublica, and NBC News pounced, accusing Glenn of anti-LGBT bias. That’s when the local chapter of the ACLU got involved, demanding an apology and calling for every book to be reinstated.

Glenn didn’t oblige, conveying through district spokesman Jeff Meador that all the titles they’d pulled from shelves are “sexually explicit and not age-appropriate.” That said, the libraries “continue to house a socially and culturally diverse collection of books for students to read, including,” he pointed out, “books that analyze and explore LGBTQ+ issues.”

Naturally, that didn’t satisfy the ACLU, whose lawyers decided to involve the federal government in a local dispute that could have a chilling effect nationwide. “If the government finds in the ACLU’s favor,” The Washington Post cautioned, “the determination could have implications for schools nationwide, experts said, forcing libraries to stock more books about LGBTQ individuals and requiring administrators — amid a rising tide of book challenges and bans — to develop procedures ensuring student access to books that some Americans, especially right-leaning parents, deem unacceptable.”

Of course, the heart of the ACLU’s allegation — that Granbury (and Glenn, especially) is violating the Left’s new definition of “sex” — is a stretch by almost every legal standard. The Biden administration may have twisted the word “sex” to mean “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” but that interpretation has never been passed into federal Title IX law.

And yet, the ACLU’s Chloe Kempf maintains (unconvincingly) that the “book removals and also the comments create this pervasively hostile environment.” “Both send a message to the entire community that LGBTQ identities are inherently obscene, worthy of stigmatization — and the book removals uniquely deprive LGBTQ students of the opportunity to read books that reflect their own experiences.”

Conservatives pushed back, insisting that this isn’t about LGBT hostility but age-appropriate content. Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, insisted that this whole controversy amounts to a leftist intimidation campaign. “The ACLU is bullying school districts who have responded to parental concerns about pornographic library books offered to children. Access to pornography at school is not a civil right.” Even if the law had been changed to include “sexual orientation and gender identity” in Title IX, “children still do not have a right to sexually explicit or violent content in public school library books. And school systems are under no obligation to support a publishing industry who can’t sell these books to parents and so sells them to librarians instead.”

Frankly, Kilgannon argued, “This is federal overreach into the education system, which is supposed to be a state issue.” Not to mention that “Biden is weaponizing another government agency: the DOE.”

If the president does intervene, dictating how school libraries handle certain book titles, the issue will almost certainly end up in court. “This isn’t the sort of civil rights issue that requires federal intervention,” Will Flanders of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty argued. “It’s a question about books in schools, not about individual rights being violated.”

Either way, it does show one thing: the potency of the parents’ movement. Cameron, who’s in his own fight to host story hours in the same libraries that allow drag queens, is witnessing the momentum firsthand. As many as 1,000 people turned out in Placentia, Calif. to hear the “Growing Pains” actor read his new book, “As You Grow.”

“I know why parents and grandparents are coming out of the woodwork,” Cameron told The Federalist. “They understand there is a war on children — and nobody’s going to stop it but us.” So if there’s one thing Americans can do, he told the crowd, it’s this: “Don’t just talk about what’s going on. Change what’s going on.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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Biden Admin Plans To Roll Back Trump-Era Free Speech Protections In Education

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‘A guilty until proven innocent standard.’

  • President Joe Biden’s administration is planning to roll back current Title IX regulations, which experts argue will revoke protections for both the accuser and the accused in sexual assault cases and threaten freedom of speech at federally funded schools. 
  • “It ultimately returns Title IX back to a guilty until proven innocent standard,” Sarah Perry, a senior legal fellow for the Heritage Foundation said.
  • “Any changes could put students’ free speech rights at risk and will only exacerbate the problem of self-censorship that has been plaguing our campuses,” Speech First executive director Cherise Trump said. 

President Joe Biden’s Department of Education (DOE) is planning to roll back Title IX due process regulations implemented by former President Donald Trump’s administration, which experts argue will revoke protections for both the accuser and the accused in sexual assault cases and threaten freedom of speech.

The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is planning to rewrite the rules outlined in Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments that set sexual harassment standards at federally funded schools. The Biden administration’s changes would reverse 2020 due process protections that require federal K-12 and higher education schools to investigate Title IX violations in a fair and unbiased manner, which includes the right to be represented by counsel, the presumption of innocence, the ability to cross examine and to introduce witnesses, experts told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Proponents of the current standards argue they fixed problems created by former President Barack Obama’s Education Department; before the 2020 changes, instances of sexual assault and harassment were only recognized as instances of unlawful sex discrimination through regulations that were not legally binding. However, under the current standards, school districts, colleges and universities have a legal obligation to respond to such cases in a fair and unbiased manner.

Under the Trump administration’s standards, instances of sexual assault at federal schools are handled more like “quasi-judicial proceedings,” Sarah Perry, a senior legal fellow for the Heritage Foundation, told TheDCNF.

“It ultimately returns Title IX back to a guilty until proven innocent standard … as opposed to leaving it to one Title IX investigator to determine who was right and who was wrong, in a ‘he said, she said’ proceeding,” Perry said.

Speech First executive director Cherise Trump told TheDCNF that the rules changes will likely be weaponized against constitutionally protected speech, which could make students subject to “harassment” for their personal or political stances.

The current Title IX regulations that were implemented in 2020 are consistent with a Supreme Court precedent known as the Davis Standard, which concluded that “student-on-student harassment must be so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive its victims of access to a school’s educational programs or activities,” Trump explained.

“This is a pretty high threshold that protects students from being accused of harassment for simply voicing their opinions and possibly offending someone with their ideas,” Trump said. In response, universities frequently manipulate Title IX language to fit a more “broad-sweeping definition” such as “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive…” to “severe, pervasive, or objectively offensive,” she explained.

The small change in wording allows school administrators to restrict and punish speech they believe is “offensive,” “unwanted” or “problematic,” but would not be considered harassment under current Title IX rules, she said.

“Previously, the process for adjudicating serious harassment allegations on campus had been plagued by bias, vagueness, and overreach,” Trump added. “Any changes could put students’ free speech rights at risk and will only exacerbate the problem of self-censorship that has been plaguing our campuses.”

A Republican coalition of 15 state attorneys general have expressed legal concern about the DOE’s plans to roll back the “historic” move that codified sexual harassment regulations under Title IX into law, arguing the previous standards were unworkable and unfair.

“Hundreds of successful lawsuits against schools for denying basic due process and widespread criticism from across the ideological spectrum arose from the Obama-era rules“ the statement said. “The rules also resulted in a disproportionate number of expulsions and scholarship losses for Black male students.”

The Department of Education did not respond to The DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

KENDALL TIETZ

Education reporter.

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