As a Christian teacher, Biden's Title IX rule made my job nearly impossible

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3 days ago

It may be hard for government officials to believe that rewriting the 52-year-old Title IX law to include "gender identity" as a protected category could seriously impact one teacher in one small county of south-central Tennessee.
It's difficult enough convincing those officials that doing so is causing irreparable harm to countless girls and young women all over America.But the damage to all of us is no less real for the fact that the Biden administration deliberately turned a blind eye to it and a deaf ear to a growing chorus of protests.In response, 26 states, represented in multiple lawsuits, sued and won injunctions temporarily blocking the administration's Title IX rule in some parts of the country.
More: Judge axes Biden Title IX rule against transgender discrimination after Tenn., other states sue
But now, a ruling issued by a federal district court in Kentucky, in a case involving Tennessee, blocks enforcement of that rule nationwide, permanently wiping away every part of it across the entire country. And since then, the Trump administration has issued a letter agreeing with that court decision and declaring it would not try to enforce the rule anywhere across the country.That ruling, bolstered by the recent Trump administration letter, now protects school districts, teachers, and students across the country from a brutal government overreach that tried to redefine 'sex' in federal law. The Biden Title IX rule violated biological reality, science, and common sense; threatened women's advancements in education and athletics; callously dismissed the rights of parents and their children; and posed a potent threat to the privacy and safety of young women.
As a teacher, not all of those particular dangers and humiliations impact me directly. But I'm a member of Christian Educators Association International, an organization represented by Alliance Defending Freedom in one of those federal lawsuits (State of Tennessee v. Cardona) because the Biden administration's Title IX rule did threaten my work and freedom.
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I just finished my 11th year as a public high school teacher. My current classes include statistics, geometry, and the Bible as literature. I'm also moderator for a Christian club on our campus.
My statistics classes often involve comparing results of studies between men and women. How could I discuss those comparisons in a way that didn't violate some student's notions of gender identity?How could I lead a discussion of the biblical story of creation, sex and marriage without contradicting the administration's regulations on those subjects?How could I participate in any casual conversation on these subjects with my colleagues without potentially provoking the outrage of someone who disagrees with me?If the Biden rule went into effect, my district's policy on these issues would require faculty, staff and students to report any conduct they consider a violation to the district's official Title IX coordinator. That means anyone taking offense at anything I say (or don't say) could have gotten me into a great deal of trouble — career-ending trouble.
Obviously, my best bet is to just not 'go there.' Don't compare statistics on men and women. Don't teach gender-related passages of the Bible. Drop out of my role with the Christian club.
But that would mean compromising my work and surrendering my freedom of speech, as surely as so many young women are surrendering their privacy, safety, and dreams of athletic achievement — and as surely as so many of us are being asked to ignore biological reality.That's an incredibly high price for all of us to pay for changing — to gain political capital — a federal law that, as is, has reaped enormous benefits for women across America for 52 years.One benefit of teaching geometry is that I've learned where to draw the line. Now a federal court has confirmed what most people can plainly see: The Biden administration illegally stepped over the line when it tried to write gender ideology into Title IX.
I just hope — for all our sakes — that common sense continues to make progress like this across the country.Josh Taylor teaches high school in Coffee County, Tennessee.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: I'm a teacher who's glad Biden couldn't redefine sex | Opinion