The Biden administration’s proposed changes to Title IX, a statute that prohibits discrimination based on sex, that would include protections for students identifying as transgender are “an attack … on all women,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told The Daily Wire.
Biden’s proposed rules would expand the protections under Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity, which could mean allowing male students access to women’s sports and locker rooms if they identify as female.
Tuberville, who began his coaching career as a high school girls’ basketball coach, said during an interview that Biden’s proposed changes would result in “lawsuit after lawsuit and unfortunately it’s going to really affect high school and college women.”
There have already been several lawsuits relating to the issue, the most notable of which was filed by three female athletes in Connecticut. They sued the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) in February 2020 because it allowed two biological males who identified as women to compete against the biological females in high school track and field. A fourth student later joined the lawsuit, but it was dismissed in April 2021 because the transgender students had graduated.
In that case, two transgender athletes had dominated Connecticut girls’ track during their time in high school, taking 15 women’s state championship titles when those titles were previously held by nine different Connecticut girls. The transgender students also took more than 85 opportunities to participate in higher level competitions in the 2017, 2018, and 2019 seasons.
“We train for so many days a week, so many hours to be able to be the best in our state and the best in our region, and these biological males are just taking it away from us and we really deserve it,” Alanna Smith, one of the girls who brought the lawsuit, told Fox News in February 2021.
In May, Tuberville sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona arguing that the proposed changes to Title IX would destroy “opportunities for generations of women and girls at the behest of liberal extremism.”
“Any such weakening of current Title IX protections would amount to a reversal of 50 years of progress for women and girls in sports and an offense to every woman who has ever benefited from the enactment of the law,” Tuberville wrote. “Title IX has fostered generations of female athletes who would otherwise never have been afforded the same opportunities as their male counterparts.”
In his letter, Tuberville also noted that at least 13 states have enacted laws that prohibit biological males from competing in women’s sports.
In addition to the letter, Tuberville has co-sponsored the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, legislation that would require Title IX to define “sex” based “solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
“They’re not about to even let this come to the floor,” Tuberville told The Daily Wire, explaining that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) won’t let the bill to get a vote. Tuberville said that he has seen support for the bill from Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), indicating that such a bill could actually pass if it were brought up for a vote.
Following his letter, Tuberville in September also submitted a comment to the proposed Title IX rules, arguing that by “broadening the definition of ‘sex’ based on weakly-associated case law and polarizing social concepts adopted by the progressive left, the intent of the law is destroyed, and women are marginalized yet again.”
Tuberville told The Daily Wire that there’s “no common sense” with Biden’s proposed rule, but that “sooner or later, this country’s going to get back to common sense.”
“This is an attack – not just on sports or on girls playing sports – but on all women, giving opportunities to men,” Tuberville said.