Should “transgender” be a recognized class protected for federal funding? President Trump says no.
Last Thursday we published a review of our friend Nancy Pearcey’s book, Love Thy Body. Today, in an unusual back-to-back fashion, we’re featuring Nancy’s writing again. Her recent article in The Daily Caller, “OPINION: Science Wins — Trump Administration Proposes Transgender Policy Based On Biology” is worthy of another posting at Darrow Miller and Friends.
Here’s how she begins.
The Trump administration has proposed the idea of recognizing “sex” as “biological sex” for purposes of Title IX, according to a draft memo leaked to the New York Times.
This seemingly innocuous proposal has sparked a firestorm.
First, a brief background. Title IX prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex” in federally funded programs. It was passed in 1972 as part of the Education Amendments Act to ensure that women have access to educational programs equivalent to men’s programs.
In 2016, the Obama administration issued a guidance letter reinterpreting “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The letter required schools to “treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for the purpose of Title IX.” This drastic reinterpretation was done without an act of Congress or even the normal rule-making process for regulations. It was clearly an act of bureaucratic overreach.
Dr. Pearcey concludes the article,
The problem is that if we can no longer define women by objective, scientific criteria, then we can no longer legally protect women as a class. We cannot legally protect a category of people if we cannot identify that category.
Private feelings are important, but public law must be based on scientific facts.
A friend of mine made a salient, related observation,
Taking this to its logical conclusion – if a person’s feelings and perspective can trump their biological sex then the same should be allowed to trump biological skin color and ethnicity. If so, all the Asian Americans who have filed the lawsuit against Harvard charging discrimination should just write “African-American” on their applications next time – claiming this is who they believe they are. Recall the YouTube video of university students unwilling to challenge the claim of a short white guy identifying as a 6’5″ Chinese woman. You can’t have it both ways.
- Gary Brumbelow
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