Days before a Biden rule against anti-LGBTQ+ bias takes effect, judges are narrowing its reach

TOPEKA, Kansas — New federal court rulings limit the Biden administration’s enforcement of a rule protecting LGBTQ+ students from discrimination. Critics could narrow the rule even further on a school-by-school basis.

A federal judge in Missouri has ruled that the rule in six additional states, bringing the total to 21. Wednesday’s decision by Senior U.S. District Judge Rodney Sipple, a President Bill Clinton appointee, applies to Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. It comes just a week before the rule is set to take effect.

Sipple’s ruling followed a decision last week by U.S. District Judge John Broomes in Kansas that blocked enforcement in that state, Alaska, Utah and Wyoming, as well as in individual schools and colleges across the U.S. with students or parents who are members of three groups that oppose the rule. Broomes, an appointee of President Donald Trump, gave one group, Moms for Liberty, an extra week — until Friday — to submit its list of affected schools and said it could also add schools for members who oppose the rule. his first order of July 2.

Republican officials who want to roll back transgender rights have hailed Sipple’s ruling as a victory for cisgender girls and women, and have framed the issue as protecting their privacy and safety in bathrooms and locker rooms. They have also argued the rule is a trick to allow transgender people to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams, but Sipple said that would not apply to athletics.

“Once again, a federal court has stopped the Biden-Harris administration from bypassing Congress and pushing through a ridiculous, nonsensical, and illegal election-year move,” Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffith said in a statement. “And it comes just in time for the start of the new school year.”

Moms for Liberty had told Broomes in a lawsuit earlier this month that its members have students in tens of thousands of schools across the U.S., many of which are in Democratic-led states that support the rule. Judges in Alabama and Oklahoma also have not yet ruled on lawsuits filed by those states and Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

The three groups already involved in the Kansas lawsuit have submitted lists of about 1,100 schools and colleges in the U.S. affected by Broomes’ order. An AP analysis shows that 69% fall outside the 21 states where enforcement has already been blocked.

The Education Ministry did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the latest rulings on Thursday, but it is standing by the rule, which takes effect Aug. 1. LGBTQ+ youth, their parents, health care providers and others say the restrictions on transgender youth are damaging to their mental health and making often-marginalized students even more vulnerable.

The Biden administration has asked federal appeals courts in Cincinnati, Denver and New Orleans to overturn the judges’ injunctions. On Monday, it asked the U.S. Supreme Court to limit injunctions that apply in 10 states. It seeks to uphold a provision that declares bias against transgender students violates the 1972 Title IX civil rights law, which prohibits sex discrimination in education, without affecting access to restrooms or students’ use of preferred pronouns.

The rulings by the various federal judges at least block the rule from being challenged by the states’ lawsuits, but they concluded that the states are likely to show that the Department of Education exceeded its Title IX authority. Sipple and Broomes also said the rule would likely violate the free speech rights of faculty, students and staff who fail to recognize the gender identity of transgender students.

“The Court also considers that the current regulation has remained essentially ‘unchanged for approximately 50 years. Therefore, it would do relatively little harm to others to maintain the status quo,'” Sipple wrote in his decision, citing Broomes’ July 2 decision.

In the Kansas case, Moms for Liberty had asked Broomes to apply his July 2 order to every county where a group member lived, which would have significantly expanded its reach to include most major U.S. cities. Broomes refused, but he also rejected the Department of Education’s argument that Moms for Liberty could not expand the list of affected schools by people who joined after July 2.

Moms for Liberty said it is encouraging people to sign up online, and has updated its website to include the schools of new members’ children under Broomes’ scheme.