TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) — Enforcement of a federal rule expanding anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students has been blocked in four states and a patchwork of localities by a federal judge in Kansas.
U.S. District Judge John Broomes suggested in his ruling Tuesday that the Biden administration should now consider whether enforcing compliance remains “worth it.”
Broomes’ decision was the third against the rule by a federal judge in less than three weeks, but it’s more sweeping than the others. It applies to Alaska, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming, which sued over the new rule. It also applies to a high school in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where a student sued over the rule, and to members of three groups that support Republican efforts across the country to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. They’re all involved in one lawsuit.
Broomes, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, ordered the three groups — Moms for Liberty, Young America’s Foundation and Female Athletes United — to compile a list of schools where their members’ children attend so that their schools would also be out of compliance. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican who last month joined Broomes in the states’ case, said the number of schools could be in the thousands.
The Biden administration’s rule is expected to take effect in August under the Title IX civil rights law passed in 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in education. Broomes’ order will remain in effect pending a Kansas trial, though the judge concluded the states and three groups are likely to prevail.
Republicans have argued that the rule is a ploy by the Biden administration to allow transgender women to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams, something that is banned or restricted in Kansas and at least two dozen other states. The administration has said it does not apply to athletics. Opponents of the rule have also framed the problem as protecting the privacy and safety of women and girls in bathrooms and locker rooms.
“Gender ideology has no place in public schools and we are pleased the courts made the right decision to support the rights of parents,” Moms for Liberty co-founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice said in a statement.
LGBTQ+ youth, their parents, caregivers and others say restrictions on transgender youth harm their mental health and make an often marginalized group even more vulnerable. The Education Department has previously stood by its rule, and President Joe Biden has pledged to protect LGBTQ+ rights.
The Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Tuesday.
In addition to Broomes, two other federal judges issued rulings in mid-June blocking the new rule in 10 other states. The rule would protect LGBTQ+ students by expanding the definition of sexual harassment in schools and colleges and adding protections for victims.
Like the other justices, Broomes called the rule arbitrary and concluded that the Department of Education and its secretary, Miguel Cardona, had exceeded their Title IX authority. He also found that the rule violated the freedom of speech and religion of parents and students who reject the gender identity of transgender people and wish to express those views in school or elsewhere in public.
Broomes said his 47-page order leaves it up to the Biden administration “to determine in the first instance whether continued enforcement consistent with this decision is worthwhile.”
Broomes also said the privacy and safety of non-transgender students could be compromised by the rule. He cited the Oklahoma high school student’s testimony that “sometimes” cisgender boys would use a girl’s bathroom “because they knew they could get away with it.”
“It is not hard to imagine that under the Final Rule, a zealous older teenage boy could simply claim to identify as female in order to gain access to the girls’ showers, locker rooms, or changing rooms so he can watch his female peers undress and shower,” Broomes wrote, repeating a common but largely false narrative from anti-trans activists about gender identity and the way schools accommodate transgender students.
