Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday joined seven other state executives in pushing back against the U.S. Department of Education’s agenda to redefine what it means to be female and male. In an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, General Paxton challenges a court ruling against the Gloucester School District in Virginia, which prohibited a female student from using the school restrooms and other intimate facilities designated for males.
The trial court in that case deferred to the Department of Education’s new interpretation of Title IX’s definition of “sex,” which holds that Congress intended students to be able to choose their gender when it came to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. This means students may choose which intimate facilities in schools (bathrooms, locker rooms, etc.) they wish to access.
“One’s sex is a biological fact, not a state of mind,” stated General Paxton. “If this radical new interpretation by the Department of Education is permitted to go unchallenged, schools may no longer be able to maintain separate restrooms, showers, and locker rooms on the basis of students’ actual sex. Title IX permits all schools to maintain separate facilities, including bathrooms and locker rooms, and I will defend that principle.”
Also on Tuesday, General Paxton sent a letter to the chairman of the Fort Worth Independent School District school board informing him of several ways in which the district’s policy regarding transgender students and bathrooms violates state law.