Representative Mary Miller (R-IL) and 67 other Republicans introduced a bill that would reverse the Title IX changes made under the Biden administration.
The bill specifically targets transgender, biological males competing in women’s sports and using female bathrooms.
“Joe Biden is undermining years of progress women have made in securing their rights under Title IX,” Miller said. “For more than half a century, Title IX has protected women and girls, ensuring they have equal opportunities in education. However, the Biden Administration is putting our girls at risk by allowing men to access women’s and girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms. This divergence is a blatant violation of the protections Title IX was meant to guarantee, and it undermines the very foundation of women’s rights and security in their private spaces.”
The move comes as Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra declared during a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing that hospitals refusing to provide sex-change surgeries for children may lose federal funding.
“Can you commit here today that your department will not withhold federal funding from hospitals or doctors who refuse to provide the gender-affirming care that you are, you know, mandating, if it violates their religious beliefs?” committee chairwoman Mary Miller (R-IL) asked.
Becerra said that doctors do not receive federal funding, only hospitals, and asserted that hospitals “not providing the service they’re required to” are “not entitled” to federal resources.
Biden’s new Title IX rules, released in April, expand the definition of discrimination to include one’s gender identity. The rules also remove the cross-examination process in sexual assault cases, meaning that colleges are no longer required to hold hearings where the accused may examine the alleged victim, according to Breitbart.
Instead, colleges are to interview the parties separately.
Twenty-six states have sued the Biden administration over the rules.
States involved in the lawsuit include: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
According to one of the lawsuits, filed by Kansas, the Title IX rules force educators, students, and administrators to “acknowledge, affirm, and validate students’ ‘gender identities’ regardless of the speakers’ own religious beliefs on the matter in violation of the First Amendment.”