New Republican congress set to launch immediate attack on Title IX LGBTQ+ protections

House Republicans revealed their proposed rules package for the 119th Congress and it includes a measure to restrict Title IX protections for trans people.

The proposed rules package – which the incoming Congress is scheduled to vote on this Friday (3 January) – includes a raft of changes to the House’s order of operations such as making it more difficult to remove the speaker of the House, changing the names of committees, eliminate the House Office of Diversity and Inclusion and allowing committees to adopt electronic voting.

As well as this, the 36-page package also set the stage for fast-tracked consideration of several Republican bills, including amending immigration laws, prohibit any moratorium on fracking and define Title IX protections solely on the basis on biological sex – effectively preventing protection from discrimination for trans athletes.

The section focused on Title IX reads: “…amend the Education Amendments of 1972 to provide that for purposes of determining compliance with title IX of such Act in athletics, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

Title IX is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation which protects people from discrimination based on sex, in education programmes or activities that receive federal financial assistance, and is best-known for ensuring gender equality in college sports.

The statute reads: ″No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

In April 2024, president Joe Biden finalised new anti-discrimination rules – first proposed in 2022 – which aim to protect people in public schools from sex-based discrimination and harassment, providing explicit protections for LGBTQ+ pupils and expressly prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

However, several Republican-controlled states vowed to reject the law, suing the Biden administration and labelling the legislation “illegal, undemocratic and divorced from reality”, claiming it puts “women at risk”.

In December, ahead of the incoming Donald Trump administration, the Department of Education withdrew its rule changes in regards to Title IX.

“The Department recognizes that there are multiple pending lawsuits related to the application of Title IX in the context of gender identity, including lawsuits related to Title IX’s application to athletic eligibility criteria in a variety of factual contexts,” a press release from the department on 26 December states.

“In light of the comments received and those various pending court cases, the Department has determined not to regulate on this issue at this time. Therefore, the Department hereby withdraws the Athletics NPRM and terminates this rulemaking proceeding.”

Notably absent in the new rules package there was Republican Nancy Mace’s Capitol anti-trans bathroom ban, which she previously said house speaker Mike Johnson “assured [her] it would be in the House rules package”.

South Carolina congresswoman Mace introduced the resolution back in November which sought to prohibit trans lawmakers – namely targeting incoming Democrat Sarah McBride – from using “single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”

Mace admitted she solely proposed the ban because of McBride, who will become the first-ever out trans member of congress when she is sworn in on Friday.

When the resolution was passed  – ironically on Trans Day of Remembrance – Johnson said: “Single-sex facilities in the Capitol and house office buildings, such as restrooms, changing rooms and locker rooms, are reserved for individuals of that biological sex. Women deserve women’s only spaces”.

However, with it not being included in the new rules package it leaves trans lawmakers and staffers in the Capitol a state of limbo.