In one of the more curious things I have seen in regard to Title IX rule-making, the Department of Energy is attempting to issue a change to Title IX's rule about non-contact sports.
That is not a typo--Department of ENERGY not EDUCATION.
This attempt at a direct final rule--a process that is reserved for non-controversial rule changes, i.e., ones that receive no negative or opposing public comments--is sketchy AF.
The change, set to go into effect July 15, would remove the rule that requires thar when there is not a team for both men and women and the sport is non-contact, that a student must be allowed to try out--just try out, this does not guarantee a roster spot--for the team that does not align with their sex. So if there is no women's golf team but there is a men's golf team, women must be allowed to try for a spot on that team. Again--this does not apply to any contact sports.
[However, state equal rights laws have allowed women to try out and compete for spots on men's contact sports teams (such as football and wrestling); and vice versa--men have been allowed to compete on women's field hockey teams.]
This rule change--which is indeed controversial and has many public comments opposing it--is said to be the result of the administration's anti-trans agenda and the declaration that there are only two sexes. But even if this were true, the current policy has never attempted to redefine sex (which seems to be what everyone is so deeply afraid of). It relies heavily on a binary understanding of sex.
So while I do not understand how this advances the anti-trans agenda, I do see how it reduces opportunities for girls (as well as boys). How many is unknown because it would seemingly (based on the reporting I have seen) only apply to schools receiving money from the Department of Energy since they are agency issuing the rule.
Media coverage has said that because the Dept of Energy does fund some schools, it is thus an enforcer of Title IX. This is...an overstatement and a confusing one at that. I have never seen this agency or any of the other federal agencies that fund schools, "enforce" Title IX. That has always been the purview of the Department of Education. Title IX complaints, for example, go the the Office of Civil Rights which is under Dept of Ed. Investigations are done by those staffers. ANY federal funding (for financial aid, for school lunches, for research grants--when those still existed) means a school must comply with all aspects of Title IX--including the rules specific to athletics.
But here we have this other DOE attempting to make a direct final rule about Title IX.
It is simply (in its convoluted way) another attempt to deprive girls and women of meaningful opportunities. This administration ahs already said it does not see NIL and revenue-sharing as an equity issue under Title IX. (The forthcoming lawsuits beg to differ.) The anti-trans athlete policies and rhetoric are covers--sadly they are effective ones--for the administration's misogyny which IS negatively affecting women athletes.
Even if it prevents very few women from trying out--again just trying out--for men's teams, the symbolism, the discourse, and the malicious intent all have much wider effects.
