I’m happy to report that Michael Rothman of the Center for Individual Rights (whose work I have known and admired for decades) will be blogging next week about his new article, Gender identity, sports, and affirmative action: What does Title IX have to do with it? The following is an excerpt from the introduction:
More recently, state and local judiciary agencies have argued that schools cannot discriminate against individuals on sports teams with different gender identities. That is, they believe that biological males who identify as females—what I will call “transgender women”—must be allowed to play on women’s sports teams. Some rely on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to justify this position, arguing that Title IX’s prohibition of sex-based discrimination requires the policy.
This, in turn, has led to others claiming that the policy is neither sensible (I won’t get into that) nor a Title IX requirement at all, but is actually unlawful discrimination against biological women in violation of Title IX. Essentially, naysayers argue that men have an unfair biological advantage over women, and that forcing biological women to compete with biological men, including trans women, constitutes sexism against biological women….
These different views of Title IX begin with the same statutory language.People take this language and conclude that certain behaviors (allowing trans women to play on women’s teams) are mandatorywhile another that asserts the same behavior is prohibit.…
Listen to an upcoming post for more on solving this puzzle.
