WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee has voted 18-15 to advance legislation solidifying in federal law that Title IX refers only to biological sex rather than “gender identity.”

In 2021, the U.S. Department of Education under former President Joe Biden issued a guidance to educators that its Office for Civil Rights interpreted Title IX, the longstanding set of rules against sex discrimination in public education, to also cover “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI).

The Trump administration has since reversed Biden’s gender rules and adopted a biology-based framework for interpreting “sex”’ in Title IX. But as an executive action, it remains subject to unilateral reversal by a future Democrat president, and dependent on how courts choose to interpret the language.

HR 8781, the Title IX Clarification Act of 2026, would amend the Education Amendments of 1972 to clarify that the “term ‘sex’ refers to an individual’s biologically determined sex, as either male or female”; that “female” means “an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a congenital anomaly, historical accident, or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes the large gamete (ova) for fertilization”; and “male” refers to “an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a congenital anomaly, historical accident, or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes the small gamete (sperm) for fertilization.”

”Today’s markup reflects our commitment to advancing commonsense policies that put students, parents, workers, and job creators first,” said Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (HR 8781 was one of 10 education bills advanced at the same time). “These bills prepare students for the future, modernize our workforce system, support employers and small businesses, protect parental rights, and ensure our laws promote opportunity, accountability, and economic growth. I thank my colleagues for their work in advancing these important measures.”

Requiring schools to interpret sex as encompassing “gender identity” effectively requires them to affirm transgenderism in a wide range of policies, from athletics to lockers to restrooms to social “transitioning” and more.

Allowing gender-confused individuals to compete in opposite-sex sports is promoted by leftists as a matter of “inclusivity,” but critics note that indulging “transgender” athletes undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, thereby depriving female athletes of recognition and professional or academic opportunities.

There have been numerous high-profile examples in recent years of men winning women’s competitions, and research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be negated by hormone suppression.

In a 2019 paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men [do] not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to (below International Olympic Committee guidelines) for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered by hormone” use; therefore, “the advantage to [gender-confused men] afforded by the [International Olympic Committee] guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”

Even the left-wing United Nations has acknowledged as much, via an October 2024 report by Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem, which found that more than 600 female athletes around the world have lost more than 890 medals to men in 29 sports as of March 2024. “To avoid the loss of a fair opportunity, males must not compete in the female categories of sport,” the report concluded.

In America since the 1980s, more than 1,941 gold medals in female events that would have gone to female athletes have instead been claimed by men identifying as “trans women,” and along with them more than $493,173 in prize money across more than 10,067 amateur and professional events, according to data compiled by He Cheated and reviewed by Concerned Women for America.

Critics also say that forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, or changing areas with members of the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status.

In Virginia, former Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent Scott Ziegler was charged for allegedly covering up the rape of a female student by a “transgender” classmate in a girls bathroom due to its damaging implications for the LGBT movement. He was eventually convicted of “using his official position to retaliate against someone for exercising their rights,” by firing a teacher who testified about the situation before a grand jury. 

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