The Obama administration has ordered schools that accept federal funding to allow people to attend single-sex lessons based on their self-identified “gender identity” rather than their biological sex.
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights sent out a 36-page memo this week stating that under Title IX of the 1972 education amendments, "all students, including transgender students and students who do not conform to sex stereotypes, are protected from sex-based discrimination.
“Under Title IX, a recipient generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity in all aspects of the planning, implementation, enrollment, operation, and evaluation of single-sex classes,” the memo added.
Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, however, said that the administration was misinterpreting Title IX. "I knew the author of Title IX, and there's no question that she simply wanted to give a fair break to girls, and get what they are entitled to. And there's no way would she have authorized [this], nor does the text of Title IX require mixing it up like that."
"I think they're crazy," Schlafly said about the Obama administration.
According to the Department of Education's website, Title IX, which is part of the Education Amendments of 1972 and was updated in 1998, says the following: "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."
Under the Obama administration, this has been expanded to cover “transgendered” students -- boys and men who identify as female, and girls and women who identify as male.
The memo says that "classes or portions of classes in elementary and secondary schools that deal primarily with human sexuality" may separate male and female students. Under the expanded definition of sexual identity by the Obama administration, schools that take federal education dollars will be unable to prevent a boy who identifies as a girl from joining a female-only sexual education class.
It is also possible that the administration’s order could affect locker rooms. The memo says that "contact sports in physical education classes" may be separated by gender -- and since showers and changing rooms are part of the "implementation" and "operation" of a physical education class, “transgendered” students could use the facilities of their chosen gender.
The memo justified its stance on overall sex discrimination by citing the U.S. Constitution and various regulatory programs. "The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex by public schools," says the memo. "In addition, Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title IV) prohibits public school boards from denying students the equal protection of the laws based on sex, and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA) prohibits some forms of student assignment to schools if the assignment results in sex segregation."
A legislative representative for the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office told Buzzfeed News that "making clear that transgender students should be able to participate in single-sex classes consistent with who they are is a positive step forward.”
The increasing tendency of Americans to see transgenderism as a social norm has seen pushback at some of the highest levels in psychology. Earlier this year, the former psychiatrist-in-chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Paul McHugh, wrote that the "sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects." According to Hopkins, transgenderism "does not correspond with physical reality," but more importantly, not treating transgender disorder properly "can lead to grim psychological outcomes."
According to McHugh, a 2011 study of transgendered people in Sweden showed that “beginning about 10 years after having [gender change] surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population."
The Obama administration's changes to federally-funded programs as they relate to transgender and homosexual advocacy are not limited to students. The administration has signed an executive order denying all large federal contractors freedom in terms of the hiring, firing, and general treatment of transgendered and homosexual employees, and has said that Medicare funds can be used to pay for sex-change operations.
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