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CHARLESTON - After executive orders and decisions by the Supreme Court, the U.S. Department of Education has put back in place specific rules for biological girls and women that groups say will harm transgender girls and women.
In an announcement Monday, the Department of Education reestablished rules set in 2020 during the first term of President Donald Trump in federal Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibits discrimination in education based on sex, putting back in place biological definitions for sex.
Among other things, the update formally rescinds Title IX rules set in 2024 by former President Joe Biden which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Biden-era rules would have required schools to allow transgender students to access locker rooms and bathrooms of the sex they identify as and banned any prohibitions on athletic participation by transgender student-athletes.
"Today's rulemaking clears the Biden Administration's illegal rewrite of Title IX from the Code of Federal Regulations and restores the commonsense language promulgated in the first Trump Administration, which we have been enforcing since the first days of the Administration," said Linda McMahon, cabinet secretary of the U.S. Secretary of Education, in a statement Monday.
The decision to reinstate the 2020 Title IX rules came after all remaining litigation of the Biden-era rules had been dismissed. At one point, there were 26 states challenging the Biden Title IX rule changes, according to Education Week.
"Thanks to (Monday's) action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully (reflect) court orders and Congressional intent - reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions," McMahon said. "We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls."
West Virginia was one of the states that balked at proposed changes to Title IX. Then-Attorney General Patrick Morrisey joined 17 other state attorneys general in writing a letter in 2022 to former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona opposing the rule change. Now the state's governor, Morrisey released a statement Monday praising the return to 2020 Title IX rules.
"I fought the Biden administration's rewrite of Title IX as Attorney General because it threatened the rights, privacy, and opportunities of women and girls," Morrisey said. "We took them to court to stop their rule from taking effect in West Virginia, and we won ... President Trump and Secretary McMahon are finishing the job by wiping the Biden rule from the books and restoring Title IX to what Congress intended. This is a major victory for women and girls, for parents, and for common sense."
Billy Wolfe, communications director for the ACLU of West Virginia, said in a statement Tuesday, that the updated Title IX guidance would be harmful for transgender children in West Virginia schools.
"Changing a legal obligation does not change the moral obligation that all schools have to provide safe learning environments free of discrimination and abuse," Wolfe said. "Schools can and should still protect students from harm, particularly those most vulnerable to it. This move by the Trump Administration is a dangerous weaponization of Title IX. It’s shameful but unsurprising that Governor Morrisey would celebrate it."
Trump issued an executive order in February 2025, shortly after taking office for his second term, that prohibited requiring biological girls and women to compete against transgender student-athletes and threatened to pull federal funding from schools that allowed transgender student-athletes to use the same locker rooms and bathrooms.
In June, a majority of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court sided with West Virginia and Idaho, upholding state-level laws that prohibited transgender girls and women from participating in sports designated for biological girls and women. The ACLU-WV represented Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old Harrison County high school cross country and track athlete who has identified as a girl since third grade and takes puberty-blocking medication.
Fairness West Virginia, an organization that advocates for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, said the proposed Title IX rule update would not only be harmful to transgender children but also young adults on college campuses. Other changes in the new Title IX guidance include changes to how sexual misconduct investigations are conducted at federally funded colleges and universities.
"Federal officials should not put college students in danger by weaponizing Title IX. Their new policy attacks transgender people under the guise of protecting women," said Fairness West Virginia Executive Director Andrew Schneider in a statement Tuesday. "This rule change severely limits protections for victims of sexual misconduct on college campuses and universities' responsibility to hold student perpetrators accountable for their actions."
According to a fact sheet provided by the Department of Education, the updated regulations put in place due process protections for students facing accusations of sexual misconduct on campus. But opponents of the rule believe it will slow down efforts to hold students accountable and could further traumatize victims of sexual assault.
"Every side of this public discussion agrees that all sexual misconduct should be reported and punished. This rule makes that sort of accountability more difficult to attain," Schneider said. "Instead of providing more protections for women from sexual misconduct, this rule provides more protections for perpetrators of sexual misconduct while trying to trick Americans into believing transgender students are the real danger.”