The Biden administration’s effort to effect a compromise position on allowing transgender students to compete on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity has drawn criticism from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Department of Education unveiled the new rule as part of a proposed 116-page package of regulations released on Thursday. It would prohibit educational institutions that receive federal funds from imposing blanket bans on sports participation by transgender students, while carving out limited exceptions for “fairness in competition” and “competitive high school and college athletic environments” where “some schools may adopt policies that limit transgender students’ participation”.
In a statement, the department said it was responding to what it described as “uncertainty about when and how transgender students can participate in school sports, particularly because some states have chosen to adopt new laws and policies on athletics participation that target transgender students”.
Multiple Republican-led state governments have in recent months passed the sorts of blanket bans the rule is meant to preempt. But Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said “every student” deserves the “full experience” of education “including participating in athletics, free from discrimination”.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez lashed out at the administration’s proposal on Twitter late Thursday, calling it “indefensible and embarrassing” and claiming there is “absolutely no reason” for it.
“The admin can still walk this back, and they should. It’s a disgrace,” she wrote.
The new rules come as anti-transgender legislation has been introduced in almost every state capital, with many GOP led states taking aim at the basic health care needs of transgender teenagers by enacting laws banning medically-accepted treatments such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone therapy for minors.
The subject of transgender students’ participation in sports has also energised Republicans, with most GOP candidates suggesting they’d somehow ban the practice entirely.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism of the Biden administration’s proposed rule was at odds with the reaction from at least one major LGBT+ rights organisation, the Human Rights Campaign.
In a statement, HRC president Kelley Robinson said the rule “makes ... abundantly clear” that “discriminating against transgender athletes is wrong and a violation of federal law,” though she also suggested that the rule “should be clarified to ensure that all transgender students should be presumed eligible to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity”.
