SC mom of trans child says effort to stop Biden Title IX rules is ‘unnecessarily cruel’

As South Carolina’s superintendent of education advises school districts to not follow the Biden Administration’s new Title IX regulations to protect transgender students, the state’s attorney general is now suing the administration over the regulations.

But the continued conversation on transgender rights only harms the trans community, an activist says.

The Biden administration extended the reach of Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, a move meant to protect those in the LGBTQ community.

“It’s not a binary world anymore of just male versus female, but it was more inclusive and representative of society,” said Mary Foster, whose 20-year-old son Knox is transgender. “Anytime we protect people. I don’t feel like that harms people, so more protection is good.”

The rule comes as President Joe Biden seeks reelection. The move could rally support among the constituencies that helped send him to the White House in the 2020 election.

Biden’s changes were met with objections from State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver who called the new rule troubling.

“This rule seeks to fundamentally and radically re-write Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a longstanding civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in all federally funded education programs,” Weaver wrote.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson joined attorneys general from Alabama, Florida and Georgia, along with the Independent Women’s Law Center, Independent Women’s Network, Parents Defending Education and Speech First Inc. and sued the Biden administration over the proposed rule change.

“As a dad of a teenage daughter, I want her to be able to use the bathroom and locker rooms at school without worrying about her safety or having the eyes of a biological male where they should not be. This is not a complicated idea, legally or otherwise, and we’re committed to fighting back as long as it takes,” Wilson said in a statement.

The lawsuit says when Title IX was enacted, “no one doubted that the law’s use of ‘sex’ referred to biological sex. And all relevant indicators confirmed what everyone understood: ‘sex,’ as used in Title IX, means biological sex and does not include ‘gender identity’ or sexual orientation.”

Weaver said the U.S. Department of Education’s effort to expand the prohibition against discrimination based on “sex” to include “sex stereotypes, sex-related characteristics (including intersex traits), pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity not about fairness.

“It is fiat,” Weaver wrote.

By redefining the class of people that Title IX intends to protect, the Biden administration’s rule seeks to change the meaning and purpose of the underlying law, thus compelling the speech of students and teachers related to preferred pronoun use; upending biology-based protections for females in athletics, bathrooms, locker rooms, overnight accommodations, and other sex-separate spaces and activities; placing massive legal uncertainty and compliance costs on districts; and creating chaos and confusion for teachers, students, and parents.

Weaver said the Biden administration’s move changes the purpose of Title IX, upends “biology-based protections for females in athletics, bathrooms, locker rooms, overnight accommodations, and other sex-separate spaces and activities”

The state Senate recently adopted a budget proviso that requires people to use bathrooms or locker rooms at public schools that match their gender at birth.

She added the regulation places legal uncertainty and adds compliance costs to school districts.

Weaver advised school districts to not implement the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX expecting a court to stop it from being implemented.

“This rule is contrary to the express text and undisputed original understanding of the statute it purports to implement,” Weaver wrote. “Worse yet, it turns the statute on its head and would rescind 50 years of progress and equality of opportunity by putting girls and women at a disadvantage in the educational arena.”

Foster, who is a preschool teacher from Beaufort, said the moves by the Weaver and Wilson harms those in the transgender community.

“All these people who are high up and respected in our government saying that ‘you trans kids don’t matter that you’re not equal to your cisgender peers’ and it just feels unnecessarily cruel,” Foster said.

Foster’s son Knox, who is now 20, came out about his gender identity when he was 15 and transitioned from female to male.

“It was not a shock to us,” Mary Foster said. “We were very fortunate. We had an amazing pediatrician who treated him his whole life. Who said ‘I’ve just been waiting for this phone call.’”

Knox attends the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Knox was never embraced socially, she said.

“Overwhelmingly, he was safe and affirmed and loved. There were definitely, (but), it’s a small southern town. So there were some people who weren’t as kind but I think it was more behind his back and to his sister,” Mary Foster said.

Knox went to a private school that was accommodating, but Mary Foster said she thinks he might have had a hard time in a public high school.

“As a kid who was pretty introverted and somewhat socially awkward, I don’t think he was prepared to endure some of what might have happened there,” Foster said.

Foster called Weaver’s move an interesting political flex.

“This is about continuing to marginalize communities that are already struggling,” Foster said.