When the law says “sex,” it doesn’t mean “gender identity.” A new report from the Heritage Foundation explains that making sex mean gender identity has caused a lot of damage. Students, especially girls, worry for their privacy and safety in intimate spaces. Survivors of childhood rape or molestation find it very troubling. Males could exploit the law to gain access to undressed women.

The report, Gender Identity Policies in Schools: What Congress, the Courts, and the Trump Administration Should Do, urges local and state control over gender identity policies in schools. It’s written by Ryan Anderson and Melody Wood.

Background: Obama Redefined “Sex”

The report lays out the history of what led to this thorny legal problem. The Obama administration told all K-12 schools to let transgender students use the restrooms and locker rooms of their choice. Those that didn’t might lose their federal funding.

To justify this, the administration redefined “sex” in Title IX. The 1972 law prohibits sex discrimination in federally-funded schools. The meaning of “sex” was expanded to include “gender identity.” The child’s biological sex didn’t matter, only what sex he claimed to be.

Title IX was designed to remedy discrimination against girls and women in education. When it said “sex,” it clearly meant biological sex. For example, it permits “separate but comparable toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex.” As the Heritage report notes, reinterpreting Title IX this way “could undermine the law’s very purpose.” The new meaning denies women their rights to privacy and safety.

The new definition bypassed the required rule-making process. People were not given a chance to comment. The guidelines required no advance notice to parents. They also appeared to permit transgenders to choose to play on female or male sports teams.

24 states filed lawsuits. The government put the guidelines on hold last summer until the lawsuits were settled. In _MONTH_, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled the administration’s attempt to redefine sex was unlawful. The Department of Justice appealed his decision.

After Trump became president, he revoked the guidelines. The DOJ dropped the appeal. This returned the authority for such policies to schools, local, and state governments.

Unlawful One-size-fits-all Policy

The Heritage Foundation report called the Obama guidelines “an unlawful attempt to force a one-size-fits-all policy on the entire nation.”

The report explains why “sex” should not be redefined. “Gender identity” gives it a different meaning. The change “favored the concerns of students who identify as transgender while entirely ignoring the concerns of other students.” It also added all LGBT students to the definition.

Common Sense Solutions

Parents, teachers, and local schools should be coming up with solutions.

The report notes that some schools have already come up with proposed fixes. One is single-occupancy restrooms and locker rooms. Another is to give transgender students access to faculty facilities and the faculty locker room.

A school outside of Chicago installed extra lockers in a private bathroom so friends of transgender students could change there too. Under Obama, however, this common sense measure was rejected.

The authors urge Congress to pass legislation clarifying that “sex” does not mean “gender identity.” Judge Kim R. Gibson of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania has observed that only Congress, not the courts, may expand the definition of sex. Congress has refused to do so. Instead, parents, teachers, and local schools should be coming up with solutions. The Trump administration agrees.

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