A Texas judge has placed an injunction on a Biden administration law that would protect transgender rights in schools and universities.
Federal district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated to the position by Donald Trump in 2017, wrote that the rule went against gender discrimination laws by placing transgender females in women’s spaces.
Thursday’s ruling came on the same day that the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a measure to kill the same federal rule.
The controversy involves the federal civil rights legislation, Title IX, which was introduced in 1972 to end discrimination against women in education.
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The Biden administration introduced a “final rule for Title IX,” due to come into effect on August 1, which extends those protections to end “sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”
Texas became the 15th state to place a temporary injunction on the final rule when Kacsmaryk issued Thursday’s denunciation.
The other 14 states with temporary injunctions are: Alaska, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Kacsmaryk agreed with the state of Texas, which sought a temporary injunction until a full ruling could be delivered.
“Pending final resolution of this case, Defendants are hereby ENJOINED from implementing, enacting, enforcing, or taking any action in any manner to enforce the Final Rule,” he wrote.
“The Final Rule inverts the text, history, and tradition of Title IX: the statute protects women in spaces historically reserved to men; the Final Rule inserts men into spaces reserved to women.”
He wrote that the Department of Education “now upends a half-century of reliance interests through its newest regulation.”
“The Final Rule reads sexual orientation and gender identity into Title IX’s antidiscrimination principle in violation of that statute,” he added.
He also said that Texas law recognizes that separate spaces are needed for women.
“Texas law protects sex separation in K–12 and higher education athletic programs.”
“Political subdivisions extend this biological-sex mandate into intimate facilities. For example, the Carroll, Frisco, and Grapevine– Colleyville Independent School Districts require schools owned or operated by the districts to separate bathrooms, locker rooms, shower rooms, and other similar facilities based on biological sex (1) determined at birth and (2) correctly identified on a person’s birth certificate.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who took the case, strongly welcomed the ruling.
He wrote on X, formerly Twitter on Friday:
“Texas has successfully blocked Biden’s Department of Education from destroying Title IX protections for women and forcing radical “transgender” ideology on Texas schools. Biden’s rule would have forced our schools to accommodate biological men on women’s sports teams and in female bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms, and required students and teachers to use incorrect pronouns.”
“A federal judge has halted Biden’s rule pending a final ruling. It’s an honor to defend our State from Biden’s unlawful subversion of Title IX,” he wrote.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a resolution that will seek to overturn the final rule.
The vote, 210-205, was along party lines.
Biden has said he will veto any law passed by Congress that is designed to stop the final rule.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
