Trump eliminates Biden's Title IX overhaul that included gender identity in sex discrimination protections

The Department of Education announced the formal repeal of the Title IX regulations approved during the Biden administration, reinstating the rules implemented during the first term of Donald Trump. The rules determine how schools must address allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment and what conduct is covered by the federal prohibition on sex discrimination.

Enacted in 1972, Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. In 2024, President Joe Biden expanded the definition of sex discrimination under Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

At the time, Republicans argued that the changes could force schools to treat students according to their gender identity in such specific matters as which sports teams they could join, which restrooms they could use, and which locker rooms they could share with other students. In fact, more than a dozen Republican-led states had blocked the Biden administration's changes.

In a statement, the Trump administration also noted that Biden's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) had used Title IX to pressure schools to allow boys into girls' spaces, including sports teams and locker rooms, and to investigate school employees for using pronouns deemed incorrect or for failing to ask students to declare a preferred gender.

The regulation, which took effect on Aug. 1, 2024, was quickly challenged by several states and conservative groups. After several judicial injunctions, on January 9, 2025, a federal court in Kentucky struck down the rule in its entirety, rendering it unenforceable nationwide. Since then, the 2020 regulations have once again served as the framework for the enforcement of Title IX.

Now, the Department of Education has formalized the return to the previous version of Title IX, removing the 2024 rule from federal regulations and officially reinstating the 2020 regulations.

"Today’s rulemaking clears the Biden Administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX from the Code of Federal Regulations and restores the commonsense language promulgated in the first Trump Administration, which we have been enforcing since the first days of the Administration," Education Secretary Linda McMahon, said in a statement.

"We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls," she added.